Thursday. Thursday is halfway to Friday. A compass heading is an orientation of sorts. That’s something I suppose, to believe you are located here or there in space and time. The two guys seated at the table to the right of me are bowed in prayer. I used to do that, so I “get it.” Prayer and devotional practice are habits of orientation, a customary behavior to assure ourselves that we are on course to home port.

We have any number of habits, customary practices to assure ourselves that we are not perishing in the vast sea, the uncharted waters, that an unknowable future will not swamp us. We pray to our god, to our government, to our political party, to our leader etc., etc..

Of course, we are to perish, will reach a finite end, as does every living being on this planet. The illusion that we gin-up, like the shaking of a rattle, “all will be well” when we know at a deeper level, that it is not to be so.

The giant toad-of-destruction remains ensconced in the White House. His chainsaw wielding spokes-person seems poised to begin the amputation process on Social Security. (According to the New York Times the mouthpiece said that Social Security is a pyramid scheme)

Canadians and Mexicans surely stagger to understand the United States regards them as “radical other”, as enemy. The “good neighbor” posture, is over, really over…

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Well, on a positive note, I read this today. Max Stirner wrote that freedom/autonomy of the self, robust agency is achieved by doubling down upon the nihilism, the extreme disintegration of bonds that we are seeing and feeling. You and I are radically unlike each other. You are one-of-a-kind and so am I. At this moment your sense of self and of world stands uniquely apart from that of any human who has ever lived, or is living now! You are that special! The same goes for me! In fact, there is no ground for us to be enemies, no real reason for antagonism. It goes without saying that either of us could “make up some shit” and forge an enemy relationship between us…

That my friend, is precisely what is occurring.

The final and most decisive opposition,
that of the unique individual against the unique individual,
is basically beyond what is called opposition,
yet without sinking back into “unity” and unanimity.

As a unique individual you no longer
have anything in common
with the others and therefore
nothing divisive or hostile;

You do not seek your right with respect
to him/her before a third party not stand with him
either on a “ground of law”
or on any other communal ground.

Opposition disappears
in perfect separation or uniqueness…

Here equally consists precisely in inequality
and is itself nothing other than
inequality.

The Ego and His Own by Max Stirner, pub. 1844, page 208-09/229