At age 66, South Carolina physician Paul Rousseau decided to retire after tending for decades to the suffering of people who were seriously ill or dying. It was a difficult and emotionally fraught transition. “I didn’t know what I was going to do, where I was going to go,” he told me, describing a period of crisis that began in 2017. Seeking a change of venue, Rousseau moved to the mountains of North Carolina, the start of an extended period of wandering. Soon, a sense of emptiness enveloped him. He had no friends or hobbies — his work as a doctor had been all-consuming. Former colleagues didn…