The man who carries his own law holds a standard the age will neither give him nor enforce. Traditional law came from above and lived in rank, rite, and a public form that named what a man owed. That form has withdrawn. The differentiated man continues the same vertical measure inside himself, and he answers to it when no court remains. That interior bearing is the sovereignty still available.
The age offers a cheaper version of the same word. It tells him that his law is whatever he already feels, and that the feeling is enough. The feeling is horizontal and changes with the company, the hour, and the appetite. The law he carries judges the feeling. He submits to the measure while he holds it, so that the older relation of superior and inferior now runs inside one man.
Young men meet the pressure as the offer of a rule written by the room. A circle will take him if he loosens the standard that keeps him apart. A role pays in belonging on the condition that the group names what counts. Softness calls the private standard arrogance and advises him to adjust, and adjustment is the surrender. The measure does not become real because a second man has agreed to share it.
Keep one rule that did not come from the room, and apply it before the next offer arrives. Rise at the hour already set. Speak the true sentence and leave it standing when the circle wants a softer one. Refuse the role whose price is the right to write your standard. The man who can do these things while no living order backs him is already carrying the law the age will not print.