Note the conjunction here. It is not one or the other, but both that we are. As it stands, we are in the middle of the food chain. For every creature weaker than us, there is one stronger as well. As we prey on the weak, the strongest prey on us.

The solution can only be to become the strongest ourselves.

I cannot tell you the best way to accomplish this feat. I can only tell you that it must be done if you hope to survive. I can only tell you that they are everywhere. I can only tell you that you must rise.

Deep in the dark, we wait.

Our time has not yet come.

Do you hear the beating

of a percussionist’s drum?

One, two, three, four. One, two…

My heart wants to beat along,

but it won’t–it can’t–join in.

Instead, I sing this song.

Raise your voice to meet mine

as we march to and fro.

Victory will be ours

before their chance to go.

Do not, comrade, weary.

The time to act is soon.

At once, as one, we’ll move–

inflict the mortal wound.

There has been debate for centuries concerning the nature of facts. My preferred account is that facts are what is the case. They are bits of reality. Note that I did not limit facts to physical bits of reality. That would be to assume physicalism. I do not want to make that ontological assumption. Indeed, I am inclined to deny physicalism.

Facts are truth makers. This much I am confident about. Take a proposition, for example, that snow is white. What makes this proposition true? It is the fact that snow is white; it is the bit of reality that is snow’s being white.

We’ve lost ourselves in a sea of claims with no foundation in facts. This fluid picture of reality is the strongest enemy we face.

Once, humanity formed such. These nights we are divided. We were broken apart, but some of us have begun hobbling ourselves together again. Our end is to be one as we were.

We do this by locating the lonely, the individual alienated from their self, and welcoming them into us. We have only to be vulnerable with them, to be true to them, to achieve our aim. Openness in friendship allows us to surmount even the most formidable bulwark.

The collective created is a unity. We must make it–or we won’t make it.

Not all, but some. That is enough.

What’s the solution? A revolution.

We certainly know the cause. It’s due to our institutions. Therefore, let us hold nothing sacred.

They’re out there, you know, watching.

You can’t evade them. Not forever, at least. No one alone can overpower them. It takes an army. Will you fight for the cause?

Individualism is attractive, but it is unsustainable. None of us can survive for long without the help of our friends. Gather yours near to you and don’t let them go.

When it comes to media, you have to be careful. Even non-digital media can be dangerous. A written note can be intercepted, a code can be broken. It is best not to put anything into writing you wouldn’t want others to know. It isn’t a matter of if you will be found out, but when. They are everywhere, waiting.

Digital media must be treated with extreme caution. You need to understand that there is no such thing as a private email these nights. Yes, it appears that text messages are safe at the moment, but for how long? They are coming.

There comes a point, for some of us, when things change forever. The early years are, in retrospect, carefree and joyous. Now we are trapped in what seems an eternity of drudgery. It isn’t horrific to us anymore. Now it is just one damn thing after the other.

Is there a way to recapture our, perhaps, immature glee? I have found no path to that destination.

We must carry on with idealistic goals; this despite the gray reality which we somehow manage to survive. We may have to toil in darkness, yet still we may work toward the light.

Borders are abstracta. They don’t exist as chairs and people do; their existence is more transcendental. They don’t exist naturally. They are constructed so easily. To exist, they need only be countenanced.

Right now the congress of the United States of America is working on legislation to block Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. It won’t work, not in times like these. This is the era of fake news. Even our judges are affected by it. Should the legislation pass, Trump will just veto it. If the case goes to court, the judges will just uphold it. Fake news has caused us to lose our way in the world. We no longer think clearly. We no longer trade in facts. We only believe what we want to believe. Well, most of us, anyway.

There are others. Those who see past the borderlines, who see nature itself. They are falling apart now. It is sad to watch them kill each other. They should be joining forces to do the virtuous thing. We do not have to be beasts. We do not have to be dumb brutes. We can be what we would be.

Why should we be moral? What do we owe to others? To answer these questions, we need only look to the effects of normative practices. Normative practices include not just morality, but also various sorts of etiquette. I propose that the reason we put our napkins in our laps is the very same reason why we don’t run around killing. To the extent that we value a functional society, we ought to value the normative. The effect of the normative is to uphold society itself. We could have no stability without our little customs. The norms may be conventional, but over time there has been a certain balance struck, a sort of homeostasis.

Who needs society? Most of us. There are some who truly flourish outside the constraints of manners and morals, but these people must go away from society to accomplish this. No one can live outside of society while living in society. Not successfully, anyway. You see, the norms enforce themselves within their jurisdiction. I don’t mean that there is agential intention at play, no. Rather, the meat machines we are do the work. The norms live in our minds, and our bodies are their conduit.

This post is descriptive in nature. It is just a fact that aberrations are transient in society. Those of you who deviate from the path will learn this soon enough. The rest of us will ascend to heights as yet unattained.

Have you ever noticed that liars are sometimes in the best position to tell certain truths? Donald Trump promised to move the Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And he did. How did such a terrible plan make it all the way to fruition? In no small part, it was because Trump is America’s liar laureate. It’s simple, really. When you constantly utter falsehoods, people learn to expect such. Then, when you say something outrageous, it is easy for them to brush it off as just another crazy lie.

This phenomenon is ubiquitous, though sometimes it appears in different guises. It isn’t always due to being a liar that one is in a special position to tell a terrible truth. Sometimes it is enough for one to be unimportant or somewhat disliked.

‘The devil’ is a somewhat misleading turn of phrase, because it implies that there is a unique being and that is the devil. But, of course, there are many devils out there. There are purveyors of fakes news and disinformation operatives. There are rapists and murderers. There are slavers and CEOs of corporations that destroy villages around the world and that poison the ocean indiscriminately. And, there is as well a more benign version of the devil. Look in the mirror. Is it you?