This is a beautiful thread naturally arising from the living metaphor of the Garments of Survival. Ellen's comment referenced cows in a herd, and the survival instinct that is "only natural" in animals. We see a human form of this same herd instinct in all the ways articulated here. How important it is to be able to see and identify these survival mechanisms gathered over millennium and "hard wired" into us! But to be able to self-reflexively witness our own behaviors is something that most animals are not able to do. To be able to notice our own natural instincts and to contemplate how well (or unwell) they are serving us is a decidedly HUMAN capacity! And to take the next step, once we've determined a BETTER behavior we might adopt, is in some way to do the UNNATURAL. Is this not what distinguishes Human Beings from the other Kingdoms of Earth? This ability to reflect and arrive at a free will choice, this lays the foundation for a new type of "Survival". So we don't look to cows as an example of a pre-emient human specimen. Nor should we look to the common tendency for groups of people to behave as sheep. Rather, when seeking an example of what a Human Being might be capable of - we can look to the exceptional individual, a human example of this super-natural ability to rise beyond animal instinct. We look to our moral heroes, our saints and our Holy people. These were and are folks who are dressed in garments fit for a Human Being! But wait! I can hear the protest. Not everyone can be a Saint! Why look at the attire of a small minority when the vast majority exhibit such fundamentally different clothing choices? Who is right? Who are showing us how Human Beings REALLY dress? Much depends on our answer. Do we look at the Holy People as outliers - freaks of the "natural" order for Human Beings to be governed by similar principals as cattle? Or do we view the Saints and moral heroes as the Avante Garde!? Those individuals who were prototyping the new fashion? This view would place the rest of us as students to them and their choices. We study the virtuoso for the purpose of gaining creative skills ourselves. We observe the exceptionally human carefully, for the purpose of becoming more fully human ourselves. What were the garments that Christ was wearing? Wait! The protester wags his finger and accuses us of being audacious to consider Christ an example of a human being. From the perspective that would look to animals for clues to human behavior - Christ is the WORST example! Being a divine Son of God, isn't Christ more angel than Human? Isn't questioning Christ's attire as silly a question as wondering what Angel's wear? Who asks such silly questions? Well, artists have. Not just all those who have sought to depict a winged cherub - but perhaps EVERY artist who has ever been visited by a MUSE - seeks to portray their supersensible inspirer's garments into a communicable form. The colors of every inspired painting - the notes of the musical genius - the poet's words - are these not the "trailing glory" of a supernatural vision that the artist seeks to clothe in earthly substance? Perhaps our "natural" scientists, historians, behaviorists' looking to the human past and the instinctual drivers of herd mentality - perhaps it might do to consider a MORE HUMAN FUTURE. In religious terminology this means a more "heavenly" future. What happens when the religiously inspired and the artistically inspired are invited back to the table around which meaning is made? What redefinitions take place? What sort of clothing is drafted up? What sort of Survival is accepted? A sensible person dresses for the weather. When traveling, a sensible person pays attention to the conditions of their destination. Where are we going? What will it mean to be adequately outfitted when we arrive?