If possible, avoid the near occasion of armed confrontation, assuming that such avoidance is consistent with manly virtue. But with hot civil war nigh, manly avoidance may not be possible. If push comes to shove, and shove to shoot, you had better be prepared both for the shooting and its aftermath.
Intellectually, though, it is exciting to be an owl of Minerva taking flight at dusk to survey the collapse of civilization. This old man is more intellectually and spiritually alive than he has ever been. The waning of sexual appetite definitely helps. What a curse is concupiscence; what a drag on intellectual and spiritual development! What a time waster! How sick a society that keeps one in heat for no good purpose.
As the end approaches, salutary Besinnung sets in. I am glad I am 70 and not 7. It is the having done, not the doing, that is often the most enjoyable and the most profitable. The serious philosopher should essay to live as long as he can so as to view life from every temporal perspective, and to squeeze from the grapes of experience the wine of many a vintage. But he should also rejoice that he is not condemned to live in this world forever. He sets his sights beyond time's horizon in the company of the immortals, Plato at their head.
I tried to post the following at my Facebook page, but it wouldn't fit. So here it is.
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