himself alone

Rivers of living water.  Bounty is easier to imagine.

I think having no spirit to guide is difficult to imagine.  I guess the best we have to compare are those Nobel nonbelievers.  One who comes to mind is Jean-Paul Sartre who was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism. 

Marxism is seen as evil mostly because of the lack of spirit or belief in God.  But it doesn't have to be.  He once described acting alone for the good of all:

Man cannot will unless he has first understood that he can count on nothing but himself: that he is alone, left alone on earth in the middle of his infinite responsibilities, with neither help nor succor, with no other goal but the one he will set for himself, with no other destiny but the one he will forge on this earth. It is this certainty, this intuitive understanding of his situation, that we call despair. You can see that it is no fine romantic frenzy but the sharp and lucid consciousness of the human condition. Just as anguish is indistinguishable from a sense of responsibility, despair is inseparable from will. With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all. ~Jean-Paul Sartre

Who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all is not the problem.  Maybe everybody doesn't have to believe.  But it is objectively harder. 

Believers can cause big problems when they think the spirit is only on fire. 

We put things in different categories sometimes.  Life goals.  Get to the end of the day goals.  I almost take for granted these times I have no choice.  I have never worked anywhere I could not imagine myself working.  I would have done with less freedom that some would say we are doomed to.  If you don't know God, Jesus or the Spirit freedom is a scary thing.  Almost too much.