“Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

How will we restore virtue to the earth? Shall it come through the world’s great religions, philanthropic organizations, commercial and governmental institutions or maybe by way of irrepressible yet random acts of kindness? Will there be another great prophet who pierces the veil of human ignorance, arrogance and denial and revitalizes the heart and mind of humanity? Or will man’s insatiably inquisitive scientific mind lead him to recreate the Golden Age once he amasses enough information?

I do not possess enough faith to adhere to the belief that there is no purpose to all of life, so I am left with the niggling suspicion that the lingering beauty, intricate design and the wondrous plasticity of the natural world has some deeper purpose waiting to be clothed by human meaning.