Response by Jed to a letter from a reader.

Dear Melissa,

I’ll try to address (some of) your questions in the order asked.

Viewed from above, the herd is not the collection of free-will-possessing, discrimination-wielding, self-determining, highly individual individuals it seems from within. From above, it’s just an amorphous blob, and the higher you go, the blobbier it gets. There is no point in treating individuals individually because all herd-based humans are afflicted with the same malady; failure to launch, caused by ignorance, compounded by ignorance of ignorance. No one knows there’s more developing to be done, further to go, hence, everyone is not-unhappy where they are. It’s hard to argue with not-unhappiness, which is just another way of saying contentment. In short, because it’s largely unknown that there’s more to life, lives go largely unlived.