Now is a good time to despair
When those alive today assiduously fuck it up
When they have fucked it up for generations
And fucked it up for generations to come
Thrashed beaten and flogged
Hanged crucified crushed beheaded and assembled the firing squad
Burned villages and deleted cities with nuclear weapons
The great inflection points merely benchmarks
The Second World War
The First World War
The Second Punic War or the First

The entertainment revolution
The revolution in transportation and communication
The industrial revolution
The intercontinental revolution
The colonial empires with their slaves
The agricultural revolution
The language-technology revolution
The digital empire
The empire of capital with its slaves
The empire of God
The empire of the state
The empire of the emperor-god
The immutable castes of masters and slaves
The duty of one’s state in life
Justification by faith
Justification by making a contribution
The periodic eruption of victory and defeat
When the battle is lost and won
The pyrrhic victories when all is lost

A mother nurses her baby
And contemplates the myth of destiny
Greatness an unlikely attainment
And at what cost
A puppet spoke for the wise man
And said We must cultivate our garden
But that’s where all the trouble started
All that toil for a distant future
For the boon of a dubious harvest