Nietzsche advocates that I become “the lion.” I offer these lines as a snap-shot of the condition of mind and heart of Lion-like existence. This points directly to our situation in Trump-world, this weak autocrat, elected by a majority of Americans. The question is unavoidable – Who the fuck are we Americans or am I, a born and raised, American? It is hardly enough to migrate from church-attending-piety, to a closet-atheism, or even to become a “public” atheist in the mode of Sam Harris. My situation is more serious. Given the ongoing expulsion of immigrants, the mass firings from federal agencies, the abandonment of Ukraine/Europe – it is now clear: the way of this world is not rational, merciful, or just.

I have been wrong all along assuming the long arc of history bends toward humane society, toward justice.  No doubt, I fervently wished for such an outcome. That I find impossible to believe now. “The world is not worth what we [I] thought it was.“

     And that is the feeling when one becomes the Lion!

Who are we anyway?

If we simply called ourselves,
using an old expression, godless,
or unbelievers, or perhaps immoralists,
we do not believe that this would even come close to designating us:

We are all three
in such an advanced stage that one
–that you, my curious friends
–could never comprehend how we feel at this point.

Ours is no longer the bitterness and passion
of the person who has tom himself away and still feels compelled
to tum his unbelief into a new belief,
a purpose,
a martyrdom.

We have become cold, hard, and tough
in the realization that
the way of this world is anything but divine;
even by human standards
it is not rational, merciful, or just.

We know it well,
the world in which we live
is ungodly, immoral, “inhuman”;
we have interpreted it far too long
in a false and mendacious way,
in accordance with the wishes of our reverence,
which is to say, according to our needs.

For man is. a reverent animal.
But he is also mistrustful;
and that the world is not worth what we thought it was,
that is about as certain as anything
of which our mistrust
has finally got hold.

The more mistrust, the more philosophy.

Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Walter Kaufmann, aphorism 346