Rather than just reacting to the stimuli of our senses from moment to moment, our minds reach out in space and time. We make plans, because we want to improve our lives and provide for our children. We develop our careers, support our children's education, save for retirement By the same token, we fear and loathe the things that threaten these hopes. At present, the emerging new millennium is giving a big boost to everybody's interest in the future. We are facing a great mixture of dazzling developments and frightening dangers.
Many people are anxious about where the world is going.
On the other hand technology is racing ahead at a dizzying speed, providing us almost daily with new appliances, services, products and entertainments, marvellous advances in medicine and agriculture and other more sinister inventions. Rapid and accelerating change gives us the impression that the new millennium marks more than a date on the calendar, and is a real watershed in human affairs. We would like to think so, but it is hard to be confident. When we view aggression and injustice reported daily in vivid colour on CNN and BBC news reports, world peace seems to be an impossible ideal. There is vast potential for improvement in the human condition, side by side with appalling suffering.