Q: Your book helped me see how we’re living in a world of undeveloped children including world leaders. What’s the point of outgrowing the false self if the children are still in charge?

Everywhere I look I see what Jed calls nasty little monkeys using the world stage as their playground.

A: Jed McKenna’s reference to ‘nasty little monkeys’ is a blunt shorthand for the immature ego structures driving much of human behavior. In the book I describe this as humanity’s arrested development. It’s what you get from a species with immense capacities for intelligence and technological power, that’s still operating from immature, under-developed psychological structures.

There’s no mystery here, but seeing humanity clearly can still be jarring when you first look around and see the presidents, CEOs, pundits, influencers, and gurus for what they are: frightened primates acting out status games on a planetary stage. The zoo has always been here, you’re just now seeing it.