Religious intensity can function as displacement for stalled life prospects

Evidence

But deep down she knew that it wasn’t really a direction for her life. She wasn’t studying and still hadn’t finished high school. She wasn’t really going anywhere. But at least she felt so much closer to God, absorbed by His presence, as if her own ego were disappearing. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 629

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A nuanced portrait of religiosity as genuine comfort coexisting with self-aware stagnation rather than either pure piety or pure escapism.
• XREF: connects to: Directing religious expectations toward earthly life can make culture cease to oppress — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 151