Dirk Stratton had an idea about what I could have said to the little boy across the street who asked me if I was a stranger.

"Yes, I am a stranger, because are we not all strangers to one another? Can anyone honestly say, and even more so, honestly believe that any of us can hope to fathom the mysteries that dwell beneath the facile masks all humans wear to fend off the terror of existence? And are we not, in the end, strangers to our very selves? Do not our own thoughts, feelings, and actions remain so incomprehensible as to render Socrates' famous dictum 'Know thyself' a sad charade, a pitiful flag we wave in a futile attempt to pretend that insight is possible, that understanding is achievable, that life makes sense, despite the fact that the only evidence we have that something we call 'the self' even exists is flimsy, contradictory, ineffable, lost? So, yes, I am a stranger, and might I ask in return, one stranger to another, Who might you be?"

Check out a few other suggestions in Thursday's Slice. 

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