We tend to think that the world we know is at the centre of something, that our time, our ideas and our circumstances have a special significance. But history does not revolve around us. We are individuals who are born, live and disappear within processes that began long before our existence and will continue long after we are gone. Societies change, technologies transform ways of life, economic structures disappear and others take their place. Each generation interprets these changes through its own experience and tends to regard its present as a permanent point of reference. Yet it is nothing more than a stage.

Perhaps we should stop interpreting every transformation as either a threat or a promise of progress. Nothing guarantees that the future will be better for us, but neither does anything guarantee that it will be worse for those who come after us. What we consider essential today may become irrelevant within a few decades. Knowledge, professions, institutions and certainties change over time. Our participation in this process is limited and temporary. We can understand it, adapt to it, question it or try to influence it, but we cannot control it. History owes us nothing. It simply continues.