Existence is no more than the precarious attainment
of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present and future.
But even the most relevant events carry within them the form of their obsolescence.

Thus, a single work is eventually a contribution to a body of work;
the details of a life form part of a life history;
an individual life history appears unintelligible
apart from social, economic, and cultural history;
and the life of a society is the sum of "preceding conditions."