The story the Leavers have been enacting for the past three million years isnt a story of conquest and rule. Enacting it doesnt give them power. Enacting it gives them lives that are satisfying and meaningful to them. This is what youll find if you go among them. Theyre not seething with discontent and rebellion, not incessantly wrangling over what should be allowed and what forbidden, not forever accusing each other of not living the right way, not living in terror of each other not going crazy because their lives seem empty and pointless, not having to stupefy themselves with drugs to get through the days, not having a new religion every week to give them something to hold on to, not forever searching for something to do or something to believe in that will make lives worth living. And I repeat this is not because they live close to nature or have no formal government or because theyre innately noble. This is simply because theyre enacting a story that works well for people a story that worked well for three million years and that still works well where the Takers havent yet managed to stamp it out.
Daniel Quinn