Every morning at 6:05am, I publish. Not because the algorithm says so. Not because it’s convenient. But because, when you add the numbers together—6 + 0 + 5—you get 11. And 11 has been with me for a long time.
In numerology, you keep adding until you reach 11 or less. Eleven is the magickian’s number—the one just outside the “whole” of 10. Ten is the comfort of completion in our base-10 system, a circle born from our anatomy: ten fingers, ten toes. But 11 stands just beyond the circle, looking back at it whole. It’s the threshold number, the outsider who knows the inside.
I used to live there. Back when I was streaming LEGO on Whatnot, selling and shipping close to 10,000 packages, my name was 11thStreet. I had the Roman numeral tattooed on my hand. XI wasn’t just a number—it was a posture, a worldview. It was Will and Self. It was the belief that I could stand at the edge of the circle and decide what happened next.
But my philosophy has shifted since then. I’ve let go of the belief in free will, settling into a determinist view of the universe—everything unfolding exactly as it must. In that light, zero feels truer to me now: the void, the origin, the unshaped potential before anything takes form. Zero doesn’t pretend to control the circle. It is what the circle rests upon.
And yet, I keep 11 close. Even now, it reminds me of a time I believed in choice. It’s an echo from another self, and when the clock strikes 6:05, I step into that echo for a moment. I let the magickian speak, even if I no longer believe he’s the one moving the pieces.
Part of why I’ve always loved 11 is that its “outside” status is entirely contextual. If we’d evolved with eight fingers, 8 would be the whole, and 9 would be the magickian. If we’d had twelve, it would be 13. The base is arbitrary. Completion is a construct. Meaning is something you make, not something the system hands you.
And maybe that’s why I can still feel affection for XI, even as I live by Zero. In Mirror Theory terms, 11 is itself a mirror—two ones reflecting each other endlessly. A doubled self, standing side-by-side, neither collapsing into unity nor breaking apart. Once, I believed that was how Will worked: the self shaping its own reflection. Now I see it as a record of my becoming—a proof that I once believed in the shaping.
At 6:05 each morning, I open that portal. Not a perfect time. A chosen one. I stand just outside the circle, as I used to, and for a brief moment, I let 11 speak for me one more time.