I could not do this, I realized, if I were immortal. This degree of love of life and of one another is granted, I saw for once and for ever, not to i… - Dan Simmons

“Humanity has evolved—as far as it has evolved,” continued the old priest, “with no thanks to its predecessors or itself. Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity.”
“Empathy,” Aenea said softly.

No lifetime is long enough for those who wish to create, Raul. Or for those who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives. It is, perhaps, the curse of being human, but also a blessing.

Although there are those among us now who have been granted the gift of being able to glimpse patterns of the future, probabilities tossed like dice on the uneven blanket of space and time, even these gifted ones know that no single future has been preordained for us or our posterity. Events are fluid. The future is like smoke from a burning forest, waiting for the wind of specific events and personal courage to blow the sparks and embers of reality this way or that.