Musings - The Sole Prescription



Let it be admitted that the world’s problems are many and wearing, 
and that the whirlpool runs fast. 

 If we are to build a stable cultural structure above that 
which threatens to engulf us 
by changing our lives more rapidly than we can adjust our habits, 
it will only be by flinging over the torrent 
a structure as taut and flexible as a spider’s web, 


a human society deeply self-conscious and undeceived 
by the waters that race beneath it, 
a society more literate, more appreciative of human worth than any society that has previously existed. 


That is the sole prescription, not for survival — which is meaningless — 
but for a society worthy to survive.

 - Loren Eiseley, from 'A Firmament of Time'










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