Yes, your pessimism incites my good cheer - as always - maybe its justification?!

Look at it this way (my mind says) : if we accept (provisionally) the analysis of sensory perceptions offered by modern science , the cosmos of the scientists , then what a wonder our planet is, and what a wonder that people should exist on it who appreciate this wonder, indeed the wonder of the whole! (Only if we accept an infinite number of planets in all, is it perhaps inevitable that among them would occur one like ours, with us on it, made in some sense from the elements produced in nuclear breakdown in our, and perhaps other stars, and situated just at the right distance in orbit, etc).

Then, this wonder of appreciation of the whole in the minds of some sapient animals on this planet for a few millennia, or decades, is bound to pass away some day as the sun goes through its life cycle : just how many minds appreciate these wonders and for how long seems rather trivial compared with the amazing fact of such appreciation exixting at all. What is more the knowledge and understanding of the workings of the cosmos and of our "illusion" of the solidity of our sensuous experiences , this knowledge and understanding derives without doubt from the sense of apartheid of our species, intimately allied to our hubris: the humble appreciation could not exist without , or at least in fact does not derive from anything else than the delusion of superiority our species has long been liable to.

Thirdly, it is surely true that the possibility of the entire species realising "enlightenment" (in the sense of appreciation of the wonder of the whole as above, and the personal and group compulsion to live accordingly) could only result from those of us who are lucky enough to experience this state ahead of our fellows feeling love and compassion for our less privileged fellows in ways that they do not experience as patronising or pissed off or at all "apart", but as their ordinary fellows - somehow infecting them with this wonder of wonders, the natural logical appreciation of the wonder ot it all at this stage , when not to experience it surely threatens to abort a maturity greatly to be desired.

Myself, even as you feel increasing despair, I experience increasing confidence, and seem increasingly well "embedded" in society compared with a few years ago, when my mind broke out of its erstwhile bonds and entered a very excited state . \you and others took much of the brunt of that - hence your relief that "obol" did not intrude in our phone chat some while back - but to me that break and excitement seem just part of the process, now with the years, and abrasions soothing all round, less disturbing to all concerned - but as much part of your old buddy as the rest.

It's the 29th anniversary of going literally out of my mind, and landing in paradise here and now, this Saturday night. By chance and design it looks as if all my six children and four grandchildren will be here for it, and Kali has designated the afternoon as the occasion for some ceremony here of "baptising" her two in a pond in the garden, itself a little "paradise" in the persian and 17th century sense of pleasure garden. and so we shall be overfull. It will likely pass over without noticeable fireworks, but it's odd just the same.

It's also, my calendar tells me, jewish new year, and the next day the first of ramadan - the religions of the book coming together - and hopefully being purified. "Religion" in my use of the term refers to an absolute attachment to the only possible alternative Way of thought and life for our species, totally subservient to the womder of it all - and not by our choice so much as by the logic of the whole thing, producing as out of a hat this crowning wonder of understanding and appreciation in the heads and hearts of a weird, and suddenly humble species on a fertile planet...in the heavens.