Domicide: The Loss of Place, Space, and Face in Modern Society

So this was kind of spooky. And it rarely happens – but the other day, I woke up at approximately 4:08 am with the title of this post blazing in my head:

Domicide.

The loss of place, space, and face in modern society.

It repeated and repeated and repeated in my mind, like a haunting shout reverberating in the halls of a cathedral, until I felt compelled to write it down in a bleary-eyed daze.

Usually it takes me a while to carefully sort through handfuls of possible titles and topics to write about.

But the message here was clear. Perhaps it was some kind of Divine prompting or channeled demand from the Collective Unconscious? 

Whatever the case, today I’m going to be talking about a widespread issue we’re all facing to various degrees, and that is the death of the notion of “home” – and how that relates to the call of the lone wolf.

This topic is deeply important – relevant to you and millions of others – and I encourage you, if you can, to stick with me right through to the end.

What is Domicide? 

Domicide is a word few people are aware of because it’s so obscure. 

I didn’t hear of it until a few weeks ago when Mateo mentioned it in a conversation about wolves losing their homelands.

One dictionary defines domicide as, “the destruction of dwelling places, rendering an area uninhabitable.”

Another source points out that the word ‘domicide’ itself is a new term coined in the late ’90s by Professor of Geography J. Douglas Porteous: 

‘Domicide’ is a new word, coined by Porteous in 1998, and is defined as “the planned, deliberate destruction of someone’s home, causing suffering to the dweller.”

Domicide comes from the Latin word domus which means ‘home,’ and cide which derives from the French ‘killer.’

Home killer.

Domicide and the Loss of Place

As we witness the horrific and heart-shattering genocide currently ravaging Gaza (and the tragic deaths of innocents occurring on both sides) and the ongoing violence and death tolls mounting between Russia and Ukraine … 

as well as the many millions who have been displaced from their homeland in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and many other places in the world …

words like domicide, genocide, homicide, suicide, and ecocide come to mind.

Domicide IS the loss of place, home, hearth, and one’s ancestral lands.

This home killing may occur through war, colonialism, or environmental degradation such as overfarming, climate change, or abusive government regimes.

The statistically confirmed deconstruction and crumbling of the traditional “nuclear family” (whether perceived as good or bad) due to changing values and belief systems is also another loss of place.

All of this is domicide at a big-picture external scale.

Domicide and the Loss of Space

Domicide at a medium scale, one closer to home that many Westerners reading this will be experiencing, is the loss of space.

Loss of space is the slow disappearance of what American sociologist Ray Oldenburg described in the 1980s as “third places” – areas away from home and work that give us access to social connection, engagement, and fun.

Just think of churches, bookshops, clubs, parks, and other areas that can provide a sense of home away from home. 

With the rise in capitalism and internet consumption, many of these places are starting to disappear, being bought out and replaced with more commercial spaces like malls or eateries, or altogether fading into oblivion like many religious churches and spaces.

When you think about being around other people, what comes to mind first? 

For many, the mall or shopping center – even the grocery store – will appear. Not the park, or the local club, or the library, but places where we spend money, aka.,:

Places that are faces of consumerism. Places where spending money is conveniently equated with meeting our innate needs of social reciprocity and belonging.

It’s a sneaky capitalistic trick, you see. If you don’t believe me, go to your local park or nature expanse (if it hasn’t been destroyed and paved over) one Friday night. Then go to your local mall. Compare and contrast the experience.

Domicide and the Loss of Face

The loss of face means the loss of connection with ourselves; the feeling of being adrift and unrooted in this world. Of being aliens on a strange planet, outsiders looking in, lone wolves wandering in a barren wasteland.

All of this is connected to domicide: the destruction of our sense of home, whether through capitalism, disintegrating social values, lack of cohesive shared narratives, war, genocide, environmental destruction, or even – as a result of all this – spiritual and existential crisis.

With loneliness on the rise and being declared a global health risk, the loss of face manifests in many ways, shapes, and forms.

Excessive social media use and addiction, as well as an increase in narcissistic self-preoccupation, are two such examples.

But overall, I define the loss of face as a sense of Soul Loss; a feeling of being disconnected from our inner vitality, True Nature, connection to the Divine, and our interconnectedness and interbeing with life. (Here’s our Soul Loss article if you’re interested in reading more about it.)

Is it any wonder that mental health issues like anxiety and depression are on the rise?

Or that getting lost in virtual realities and distracted by AI advancements has become so seductive (to escape the existential horror of not knowing who we are, where we belong, or how to cope in this world)?

Why It’s Normal to Feel Lonely, Powerless, and Isolated in Present-Day Society

If you’re here reading this, you’re likely one of the sane ones. One of the feeling ones.

This quote from Erich Fromm within The Art of Being says it all – read it slowly:

A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet “for sale”, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his “normal” contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society.

If you’re still sensitive, if you still have creeping feelings of existential dread, anxiety, fear, doubt, loneliness, and powerlessness, then you are healthy. You are sane. 

These disturbing feelings are not solely due to some personal “deficit” or “brokenness” (which the fragmented system of society would love you to believe because it makes you easier to sell to or control) but are more likely due to the fact that you’re living in disturbed times.

You’re living in the era of domicide. 

In other words, you’re a lone wolf trying to navigate the loss of place, space, and face in modern society.

The Need to Find Meaning and Direction Within Existential Horrors 

Within all this chaos and horror that we observe in the world – all of which causes us to feel powerless, lost, and overwhelmed – how can we find meaning and direction?

Meaning and direction, after all, were highlighted by Nazi death camp survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl as essential to one’s sanity and well-being. 

He writes in Man’s Search For Meaning,

Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.

We can, of course, take action to decrease harm wherever possible – protest against human rights violations, sign ceasefire petitions, donate to humanitarian causes, and make environmentally conscious choices.

But when we reach the end of the day, or wake up in the middle of the night, or sit with ourselves in the silence of a moment of aloneness … how can we internally find meaning and direction?

This is the dilemma that much of Mateo’s and my work here on lonerwolf is about.

Existential crisis. Dark Night of the Soul. Soul Loss. Spiritual awakening. Walking the path of the lone wolf. Finding true connection.

Really, what we focus on is the inner domicide so many people are experiencing right now on this planet – that feeling of not belonging, of being a stranger in a strange land, of being an outsider, of being fundamentally alone.

Of being a lone wolf.

The Lone Wolf as a Spiritual Wanderer

The purest religion of any age lies in the hands of its spiritual rebels.

– Colin Wilson

When we zoom out and look at the essence and spirit of having a lone wolf personality, we see that they play a vital role in society:

that of the Spiritual Wanderer.

The hermit, the mystic, the shaman, the sage, are all aspects of this archetypal essence of the Spiritual Wanderer. 

When we take a big-picture perspective, we see that the Spiritual Wanderer is the empath, the old soul, the walker between worlds who stands on the outskirts of society looking in. 

Gaining this unique vantage point, the Spiritual Wanderer can become a source of insight, wisdom, and healing in service to the whole.

Essentially what I’m saying here is that:

1. The lone wolf carries the essence of the Spiritual Wanderer

And: 

2. The Spiritual Wanderer is the place, space, and face that the lone wolf is destined to evolve into and occupy within their own lives and within society.

Using a Lord of the Rings analogy, just as Gandalf the Grey was destined to turn into Gandalf the White – both incidentally carrying the essence of the Spiritual Wanderer archetype – so too is the lone wolf destined to evolve into the Spiritual Wanderer.

In fact, the Spiritual Wanderer is a direct product of and response to the domicide that is ravaging all levels and layers of society. 

When we look at the lone wolf, we see that there is a disconnection from one’s original pack and one’s homeland. 

Whether through rejection, chance, or choice, the lone wolf finds themselves adrift in life, wandering alone in the world without a sense of direction, and perhaps even a sense of self. 

But in this lostness and this death of one’s home, there is a great opportunity.

There is the chance to find one’s inner home again, one’s spiritual connection to the Divine, and one’s deeper calling in life.

The Deeper Calling of the Spiritual Wanderer 

When there is war, deconstruction of social structures, and chaos, there is also the need to find new vantage points, new solutions, and new healing paths.

This is where the Spiritual Wanderer comes into the picture.

Just as past (and some present) cultures had wise men and women and peoples, as well as medicine keepers, oracles and seers, and other fringe-dwellers living on the outskirts of society, so too does our world need the presence of these wizened figures.

Where in society are our wise elders, in all their shapes and forms? Where have they gone?

Sure, there are odd wisdom figures here and there in the guise of scientists, thinkers, and religious figures – but by and large, we have lost touch with the value of the wizened guide in society.

We need to make a space for these people again – we need to carve a home for this archetypal presence that has been lost in the gluttonous consumerism and spiritually-devoid superficiality of modern existence.

We need the hermit, the mystic, the shaman, and the wise man and woman to reclaim a space in the broken spaces of our world.

And this is where I see a powerful opportunity arise in our global loneliness and domicide pandemics:

The path of the Spiritual Wanderer is opening before us.

The Pain and Potential in the Heartbreak

I will write more about the topic of the Spiritual Wanderer in future posts.

But for now, I want to repeat again that, yes, we are experiencing the crumbling of collective structures. 

We have so much heartbreak to process. So many lost lives to grieve. So much pain to digest. 

Seeing the orphaning, maiming, and terror of the children caught in the conflict within this world is too much to bear … it is shattering beyond comprehension.

However, with this loss of place, space, and face in modern society, with this home killing, those of us who become lone wolves have the chance to find a greater role and purpose.

Those of us who have the privilege of transmuting whatever form of domicide we’ve experienced – whether familial, cultural, religious, geographic, internal, or external – can find meaning and a new role in transforming pain into a deeper inner power and perspective that we can gradually share in whatever way life is asking us to share.

To do so is to reclaim a vital place, space, and face in the world – one that our societies are desperately calling for; the presence of the hermit, the mystic, the shaman, and the sage – the voice of the Spiritual Wanderer crying in the wilderness “will you listen, will you sense, will you feel, will you wake up?”