The most frightening pages of history are those which reveal how easily conditions making a desert of the human spirit may come into existence, with the oozings away of incentive and kindliness in our natural social structure.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Once, the world was full of mysteries, some of them frightening, some of them wonderful, some of them merely fascinating. Now, it can be a banal and predictable place, the tracks of daily life so well-beaten and defined, our culture awash with the imbecile obvious, our existence suffocating in safety. But mysteries remain.
The history of humanity has, to a large extent, been one of groping blindly in the dark, fearing for the future and yet resisting the guiding hand of inspired men who would willingly lead mankind in the path of safety.
What gets in our way is history and culture and religion and economic conditions. It is part of the hypnosis of our social conditioning.
We are all afraid for our confidence, for the future, for the world. That is the nature of the human imagination. Yet every man, every civilization, has gone forward because of its engagement with what it has set itself to do.
I used to think that only people who were crazy were attracted to the desert, but once you've lived there, you become that way anyway.
The first light of day today revealed what we had feared. The devastation is greater than our worst fears. It's just totally overwhelming.
It is as pleasant as it is unusual to see thoroughly good people getting their deserts.
With God's help and guidance, we shall soon see the end of this most unpleasant chapter in our history.
Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven.
We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts.