And after the briefest flowering of understanding, my own generation had grown complacent. At some level, we must have started taking it for granted that the way the universe worked was now obvious to any child ... even though it went against everything innate to the species: the wild, undisciplined love of patterns, the craving to extract meaning and comfort from everything in sight.We thought we were passing on everything that mattered to our children: science, history, literature,art. Vast libraries of information lay at their fingertips. But we hadn't fought hard enough to pass onthe hardest-won truth of all: Morality comes only from within. Meaning comes only from within. Outside our own skulls, the universe is indifferent.
Greg Egan
humanity, inspirational, morality, science