Remove the ego strivings, the stuff we do for security, the thrills, things we do to defeat boredom, all the things in life that we have to do, and especially the religious, folk, and psychological maxims that tell us what we should accept as the meaning of our lives, and then we might be able to see more clearly. In my high school English class, a teacher said that a story must have three things, characters, plot, and setting - the bare bones. I immediately took up the challenge and tried to write a story without those three elements. I painted a bleak and foreboding picture of a room with chairs and marks on the floor that suggested violence or mistreatment. But the story still contained all three elements.
Prison is a place where most everything important is removed from a person.
But prisoners still manage to find a life for themselves, manage to form relationships, do work and activities, explore interests. Some religious people manage to isolate themselves, but they too have some relationships, have meaningful activity, and ascribe their purpose to God. War is a wretched experience. It isolates people from their families for prolonged periods. People are isolated, dehumanized, mistreated by the elements and sometimes as prisoners, and live under threat of death or injury every day.