Ask Anicca: Humanity's arrested development and the quest to grow up
Humanity is stuck in adolescence - and the way out isn’t spiritual, it’s developmental.
​Ask Anicca: Humanity’s Arrested Development and the Quest to Grow Up is an unflinching examination of why modern humans mature physically but remain children at the existential level.
​
​Author Anicca Jains argues that, developmentally, there are two kinds of people: those who reach an integrated state of existential maturity at the appropriate stage of late adolescence (which is almost no one), and those who do not.
​
Among the latter, some attempt the transition later in life, at a stage-inappropriate time. Jains calls these individuals Jumpers: those making the leap from the confines of human childhood into what Jed McKenna calls true Human Adulthood.
​
This journey is not a spiritual ascent but an unceremonious dismantling, followed by a grounded, pragmatic rebirth. When the rare transition to Human Adulthood occurs later in life, it is invariably tumultuous and unfolds through a sequence of phases identified by Jains. The first three, Discontent, Disruption, and Deconstruction, are inherently destabilizing, followed by the Void, which precedes Reconstruction and eventual Integration.
​
Through candid accounts of people moving through each phase, Jains exposes the raw, recursive process of waking up from the dream of the false self.
​
Anicca’s insights stem not from theory but from direct experience - her own, as well as years spent walking beside others as they navigate this profoundly disorienting territory. Her work resists easy answers. It is blunt, provocative, and uncomfortably honest. Be forewarned: Jains isn’t here to inspire or uplift. She’s here to articulate what many intuit but few can name: that modern life, despite its advances, has left us developmentally stranded, and that breaking down may not be a flaw, but a doorway.
​
“The most important book I’ve read in a while, maybe ever.” G. Rodriguez
“This book profoundly changed my view of the world and my place in it.” J. Harty
“Esseential reading for those wishing to live a truly sovereign life.” O. Chen PhD
“A rollicking exploration of humanity’s derailed development.” S. Coe​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Paperback and Kindle edition available on Amazon.
EPUB/PDF digital edition available directly through Headlands Publishing.
