History admits no rules, only outcomes.

What precipitates outcome? vicious acts and virtuous acts.

What precipitates acts? Belief.

Belief is both prize and battle field, both beautiful and frightening, and above all, absolutely vital, within the mind, and in the mind's mirror, the world.

If we believe humanity is a Colosseum of confrontation, exploitation and brutality, such a humanity is surely brought into being. You and I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it, if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our heritage, and our legacy? Why fight the natural order of things?

Why? Because of this-
One fine day, a purely predatory world, shall consume itself. How far can greed, selfishness and the crave for power be taken? In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

If we believe that humanity may transcend truth and claw; if we believe diverse races and creeds can share this world peaceably; if we believe leaders must be just, violence curbed, power accountable and the riches of the Earth and its oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass.

I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Tortuous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.

A life spent shaping a world I want my children to inherit, not one I fear my children shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth living.

You might think your life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean.
Yet, what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?



-excerpts taken from 'Cloud Atlas'