Abstract
I fluctuate these days between a deep yearning for rest and a quiet life and the consciousness, which is often further heightened by my dream life, that we are living in desperate times and that to be an ageing ostrich is to perpetrate a form of self-betrayal which could threaten the entire meaning of my life and work. This talk is an attempt to devote what energy I have left to sounding a clarion call to those who cling still to the belief that humankind is called to embrace love and life and to oppose the forces of death and darkness. I feel rather like an explorer lost in a raging blizzard who knows he must keep awake and struggle on when the overwhelming temptation is to curl up in the snow, go to sleep and seek the comforting arms of death.