You are privileged to have been born at a crucial moment in history. A period when everything is being transformed and nothing will ever be the same again.
The opportunity is unprecedented, but seizing it is daunting, for, as beneficial as it may be in prospect, every change is accompanied by uncertainties, gropings in the dark and missteps. Its fragility exposes it to a confusion that may erode its merits.
On your shoulders still lies the weight of an inhuman past. A past that I fancy I am not alone in wishing to be done with. In the merciless struggle between the old and the new, you have landed right in the middle of the battlefield.
One civilization is collapsing and another is being born. The misfortune of inheriting a planet in ruins is offset by the incomparable joy of witnessing the gradual advent of a society such as history has never known—save in the shape of the mad hope, embraced by thousands of generations, of someday leading a life at last freed from poverty, barbarity and fear.
We were despairing of ever achieving what was commonly deemed a mirage, a utopia, but suddenly its reality is now taking shape before our very eyes.
Little by little a new society is emerging from the mist. For the time being it is no more than a rough sketch, with the best intentions rubbing shoulders with the worst. But you are not only faced by a formless block which you are expected to carve into a living, harmonious sculpture: you are yourselves part of that block.
Before you lies experience that is oddly both solitary and collective: you will each be alone in plunging into it, yet many others will be at your side, likewise busy “sculpting their own existence.”
Could there be anything more apt for a human being than combining with others to construct our own happiness along with that of all? From this passionate adventure you will quickly learn three lessons: (1) what is wished for from the bottom of the heart has every chance of coming about; (2) nothing is ever definitively won; and so (3) beware of pride and presumption!