Shankar Vedantam

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

So says the protagonist in Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel, Invisible Man.

Readers never learn the character's name, but they are invited to experience his life.

Walking down the street in Harlem, passers-by look right through him.

Diligently working at a paint factory, his efforts go unnoticed.

He joins a political organization, but he is treated as a pawn, a tool to advance the agendas of others.

Ralph Ellison's novel was about the dehumanizing effects of racism, but the feeling of invisibility affects many people.

I recently met an older woman at one of the stops on a Hidden Brain live tour I've been doing across the United States.

She told me that when she walks through a mall nowadays, people look right through her.

It's as if she isn't there.

In a 2023 advisory, former U.S.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that social isolation and feelings of invisibility profoundly affect workers in many fields.

In a conversation on Hidden Brain, he called loneliness an epidemic that is having profound implications for depression, heart disease, and public health.

This week on Hidden Brain and in a companion story on Hidden Brain Plus, the human need to be significant and what happens when this deep yearning isn't met.

Also, how to help others be seen and be seen ourselves.

As a species, humans have certain non-negotiable needs.

We need air, we need water, we need food.

Beyond these basics, however, we also have psychological needs.

We need to feel like our existence matters, that we are valued.

Psychologist Gordon Flett remembers a moment like this in his own life.