"Man the change-maker." That is one definition of Homo sapiens. Other creatures are changed — by Nature, by evolution — over vast expanses of time measured in hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Humankind consciously generates change. We innovate, build, invent, destroy, build again. Even our earliest civilizations, ploddingly slow by present standards, far outpaced Nature as agents of change.
Modern change, of course, knows no bounds; there's never been anything like it. Last week's science fiction is yesterday's reality and today's artifact. We've conquered space, conquered time — very soon, say some futurists (Raymond Kurzweil, most famously), we'll conquer death, translating our mortal "selves" into immortal algorithms living on into cybereternity.
To some this is exhilarating; to others, harrowing. Even the most progressive among us must at times long for a little rest, a brief pause, a quiet interval of contemplation: Where are we going? To what purpose? Are we headed in the right direction?