Everyone is insecure. Insecurity is one of the things that keep us attached to each other and to society. Uncertainty and the nervous sense that we'd better get a quick reality check is one of the prime movers of the group brain. Insecurity is so basic to life that even ants and bacteria get insecure. They need to rub up against each other for reassurance over and over and over again. Chimps too. They dash out of the group for an adventure, get insecure as hell, dash back, and when they plunge into the warmth of the crowd and rub up against as many of their sisters or brothers as it takes to calm them down, they accomplish something more than mere self-comfort.

They give a bit of information on the territory they've just explored. Each does a little antenna-and-scouting work for the crowd. Each gets a little from the antenna work of her insecure sisters who've dashed out ebulliently to explore, then have gotten the shivers and come back to share their experience and get some much needed warmth. Even when we move into strange emotional territory, we need to dash back and share it with a friend to make sure we're sane and to get reassurance. In the process we reveal a bit of emotional exploration to the friend.

Ever wonder about why one of the largest churches in the history of mankind was able to make such an enormous business out of confession?
There are some things so shameful we can't even talk about them with our friends. So who's in the business of listening to what we don't dare tell a soul? Not only listening and affirming us, but absolving us to boot? Yes, the good old Catholic Church. Our insecurities keep us together as an information-processing engine. Our restlessness keeps us going off in new directions so
we'll have something to share. Every time we panic and run to talk to a friend we are providing new stuff for the data cruncher of society to munch. So what's true of chimps and ants and microbes is gonna be true for you and me.

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