Ben,

I think that if there is one concept to bring the march across the global petri dish to look itself in the mirror, it would be the realization that time is not the point of the present, moving past to future, but change turning future to past.

There is no pot of gold at the end of the narrative arc. No singularity, no nirvana, no Armageddon. The end is punctuation, not destination. Whether we ride the waves up and down, or march off the highest cliffs, it's really just a hiccup to the earth. Ten thousand years into the past, to ten thousand years into the future is a passing ripple.

Time is a tapestry being woven of threads pulled from what had been woven.

We might dream of transcending the present, but like the rest of life, we will never escape it.

There is no ends, only means.