Those alternatives offer promise. They promise that we will be great, that we will be rich. They tell us that we will be powerful, that all of our needs will be met if we simply follow them. This message of deception first heard in the Garden of Eden has tempted human beings throughout the ages. The poet, Shelley, once wrote of a man who chose to listen to that message.
Nothing beside remains.
The lone and level sands stretch far away. That is what comes when we choose what the world offers us. That is our end when we attempt to form our own destiny believing that power and wealth will make us great and make our memory endure through the ages. Those ruined and scattered stones speak well. One day they will speak no more for they too will be ground to dust by the wind and scattered among the sands of the desert.