Isn't it grand that there is always a plan for us? Why is that, exactly? And how is it that these plans made by others are binding on us?

It's a largely unquestioned and strangely accepted oddity of life.

The natural order of things is for children to grow up into adults who make their own plans. This latter is what Jefferson – that hateful white male patriarch – meant when he wrote about the pursuit of happiness. It is a thing natural – instinctive – to every normal human being. Could anything be less normal than having one's own life – you don't get another – planned out by others?

Could anything be more effronterous, more tyrannical?

Jefferson wrote about that also. This business of some born to hold the reigns and others born to the bit. That is what plans mean when you aren't the one making them but are the one expected to abide by them. Insufferable. Yet accepted as a matter-of-course by what seems to be most people. Perhaps because it is presented – as these things almost invariably are presented – in the most benign-sounding way imaginable. As if the "plans" were the result of a gentle committee at which everyone had a seat – and a say. As if those who didn't and don't could say no to the plan – without violent repercussions attending.