Beware people preaching that we live in special times. People __1__ have preached that message before, and those listened sold their __2__ furniture and climbed up on rooftops to await for ascension, or __3__ built boats to float out the coming flood, or laced up their Nikes and poisoned themselves in some California Subdivision. These prophets are the one with visions of the seven-headed beast, with a __4__ taste to the hairy shirt and the scourge, with twirling eyes. No, it’s __5__ no use listening to them.
And yet, for all that, we may live in a special time. We may live in the strangest, most thoroughly different moment since human being __6__ took up farming 10,000 years ago. Since then time has flowed at one __7__ direction—toward more, which we have taken to be progress. At first Tte momentum was gradual, almost imperceptible, checking by wars __8__ and the Dark Ages and plagues and taboos; but in recent centuries it has accelerated, the curve of every graph steepens like the Himalayas __9__ rising from the Asian steppe. We have climbed quite highly. __10__