Nobody’s Flying the Plane

There are no adults in the room — but there are also unlimited rooms.

So many people in the corporate/modernity sphere — and by “modernity sphere” I mean the fact that we are reliant on systems to survive... we can no longer live off the land practically, we have to pay taxes, therefore we need an income, we need to interact with other people to derive that income, we need people to like us, or at least not think we’re total loony tunes, etc…

...so many people in that sphere are afraid to ever say what they really think. Or even what they quietly wonder about.

I don’t mean spectrum-level naivety — like telling your partner they look fat in that outfit or talking back too harshly to your boss even though they’re wrong about something. I mean how you might feel about social or cultural issues or, say, how your job is a joke, or how the things they taught you in school about XYZ are actually completely wrong.

You know… bigger picture, yet still often controversial observations about the world.

Exactly the kinds of things we discuss at The Junteau.

These aren’t hot takes as much as highly unspeakable truths… not because they’re incorrect, but because they feel risky to say out loud. They might threaten your status, your stability… your access to “the system.”

But then something else happens.

As you get older — maybe after marriage, or having kids, or leading people at work —
you start to realize something else:

This is deeply unsettling once you realize it.

It’s like there’s nobody in the cockpit on a flight… no one at the controls.

This uneasy feeling is more biological than philosophical.

We’re all born into a child-parent relationship — completely dependent for survival for years. That wiring doesn’t just disappear in adulthood. We just redirect it to bosses, to presidents, to brands and logos, to "the economy," to “the system.”

Psychologists call this transference, which is the unconscious need to project authority and stability onto figures (human or not) who fill the role of caretakers.

Anthropologists point to evolutionary group behavior, about how early humans had to attach themselves to leaders or be left behind.

So we inherited these instincts to trust… and feel the need to have… someone or something “in control” of our lives.

Of course, this is the great lie…

Nobody is flying the plane.

Sure, there are structures and incentives and power projections — governments that will tax or regulate you, send armed police your way, etc… but that’s not the same thing as control.

We can argue these semantics, but then ask yourself… honestly:

Who’s in control of them?

Certainly not adults.

Just look around you.

As I type this, the two most powerful people on the planet you live on — the President of the United States and the wealthiest man and leading tech mogul in the world — are fighting like middle schoolers… live… on the global internet.. less over philosophical differences on debt and spending and more over pettiness and ego.

Now zoom out even further in time and space. This is what “leadership” has always looked like in some form or another. Take a stroll through history and you’ll see the same pattern… true power and legitimate accomplishments, but laced with chaos, contradiction, and childishness:

• Alexander the Great: Conquered much of the known world and spread Hellenistic culture, but accepted divine honors and killed his friend Cleitus in a drunken fight.

• Thomas Jefferson: Wrote “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, but owned slaves, including his children with Sally Hemings.

• Albert Einstein: Revolutionized physics with relativity, but set strict personal rules for his wife Mileva Marić during their troubled marriage.

• Steve Jobs: Built Apple and transformed Pixar into a film giant sold to Disney, but initially denied his daughter Lisa, treated colleagues harshly, and delayed cancer treatment for alternative methods, leading to his early death.

• General Patton: Led brilliant WWII campaigns, but slapped soldiers with combat fatigue, favored using some ex-Nazis for reconstruction, and believed he was literally reincarnated from ancient historical warriors.

• Alexander Hamilton: Established America’s financial system, but had an affair and died in a duel with Aaron Burr over personal honor.

• Woodrow Wilson: Promoted global peace through the League of Nations, but supported federal segregation, jailed war critics, and, after a stroke, secretly relied on his wife to control access, hiding his incapacity.

• Franklin D. Roosevelt: Guided America through the Depression and WWII with the New Deal, but interned Japanese Americans and expanded FBI surveillance.

What’s the point of all these examples?

Don’t deify anyone, ever.

Champion ideals, not idols.

Ideals are pure.

Execution is inconsistent and wrapped up in human flaws.

There is no cage. And if there is, the latch is open.

A lot of people are deluded into believing they’re trapped in a cage. That cage might be inside the modernity sphere — but the cage itself is an illusion.

Let’s do a little mental exercise, shall we?

Imagine posting something vaguely existential on LinkedIn right now. Something like, hm….

“Isn’t it wild how most white-collar jobs are just performative freakshows? lol.”

Make it ambiguous — part satire, part truth.

So… would you type that? Would you hit send?

No.

And why not?

Because that would feel like tossing a Molotov cocktail into what you perceive as your entire professional world. Your own personal Total Addressable Market (TAM). Because what you feel you’re really selling in the modern economy isn’t just your skillset, knowledge, and experience… but your willingness to relinquish a little bit of your individuality and day-to-day intentionality, to sacrifice some freedom of thought,
in exchange for tethering yourself to someone else’s system that will provide for you.

Here are some problems with that…

One…
If expressing truth feels dangerous, then you’re living in a world where honesty itself is a liability. Is that “professionalism” …or is it… theater?

Two…
You’re conflating LinkedIn for the entire economy.
Yet the economy is humungous.
There are sectors, customers, and entire ways of living that exist outside your current audience… which is infinitesimally yet deceptively small.

“But VEO… I’m a banker, or a lawyer, and I can’t have people thinking I’m too reflective or noncompliant!”

OK. But that raises a deeper question:

Why do you conceptualize your identity around your job title or skillset like this?
And if people don’t appreciate your reflections, or think they’re inappropriate —
why are you still trying to stay in a room full of those people?

Now here’s where this all converges…

There are no adults in the room.

Which means that…

Anything you say — anything you post, share, or express — is only going to be heard by other kids playing dress-up… just like you.

Not by “wise elders”, but peers pretending to be elders… just as afraid, just as unsure, just as caught in their performance loops.

So if that’s who’s listening to you and watching you...

Then why are you letting their fake judgment influence your truth and whether you contemplate it openly, let alone privately?

Interesting thought experiment, right?

There are no adults in the room.

But there are also unlimited rooms.

Who told you that you had to stay in the one you’re in?

There’s the door.