Beware people preaching that we live in special times. People __1__
have preached that message before, and those listened sold their __2__
furniture and climbed up on rooftops to await for ascension, or __3__
built boats to float out the coming flood, or laced up their Nikes
and poisoned themselves in some California Subdivision. These
prophets are the one with visions of the seven-headed beast, with a __4__
taste to the hairy shirt and the scourge, with twirling eyes. No, it’s __5__
no use listening to them.
And yet, for all that, we may live in a special time. We may live in
the strangest, most thoroughly different moment since human being __6__
took up farming 10,000 years ago. Since then time has flowed at one __7__
direction—toward more, which we have taken to be progress. At first
Tte momentum was gradual, almost imperceptible, checking by wars __8__
and the Dark Ages and plagues and taboos; but in recent centuries it
has accelerated, the curve of every graph steepens like the Himalayas __9__
rising from the Asian steppe. We have climbed quite highly. __10__