You open Instagram and there's a friend on a beach in Greece. You feel the small flicker before you even name it. The flicker that calculates how is my life by comparison. Maybe they're ahead. Maybe you are. The math runs without permission. By the time you scroll past the photo you've already done the comparison and arrived at a verdict about yourself.
That flicker is what K called the engine. Every comparison establishes a higher and a lower. The moment higher-and-lower exists, the self has something to be. Better than. Worse than. On the way up. On the way down. The self doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists in relation to other selves it has just ranked.
Comparison isn't regrettable. It's the precondition for the kind of self that needs comparison to know it's there. Stop comparing for an afternoon and the self gets quieter. Not better. Not happier. Just less defined. Most people find this uncomfortable and resume comparing within minutes, often without noticing they did.
The friend on the beach didn't do anything to you. The comparison did. The friend was just the trigger that lit the engine that was already idling.