We Still Have a Choice

I am reading a book entitled The Recovery of Confidence by John W. Gardner. It's unorganized as all hell and some of his rhetorical strategies are ineffective and overused. But Gardner has some really powerful, beautifully articulated ideas here, and I feel compelled to share the first few pages of Chapter Eight, "We Still Have a Choice":  


     "If you ask someone to describe his idea of Utopia, the chances are he will outline a world that is at odds with everything we know about man and his institutions. He will ignore (or deal unrealistically with) the flaws in human nature that every society must cope with continuously. He will ignore the tendencies in human organization that will always imperil individuality. But his most important omission will be the element of moral striving. 
     Typically, his Utopia will be static. Perfection will have been achieved. And much that makes life alive will thereby have been eliminated. There is no seeking when you have already found; no problem-solving when you have the answers; no joy of the climb when you're sitting at the summit; no thrill of cultivation when it's always harvest time. Such perpetual success without effort, arrival without journeying, solution without trial and error would be inanimate--and insupportably dull. It is precisely that inanimate quality, the absence of any element of effort, that makes the conventional concept of "happiness" so bland, empty, and meaningless. 
     We are not at our best when the battle is won; we are strivers, at our best when the goal seems nearly unattainable. That is our nature. And it fits us well for the world in which we find ourselves. There are inescapable features of the human condition that guarantee the continued struggle.
     There are things in human nature that make static perfection unthinkable. For example, if we could today completely eliminate from the society all prejudice, all hostility, all tyrannizing of one man over another, it would begin to creep back tomorrow. And there are things in human organization that make static perfection impossible. If we could bring our society to a pitch of perfect vitality and creativity today, the processes of decaying would begin tomorrow. The tendencies of human organization rigidify, to exalt form over spirit, to stifle individual creativity, to resist innovation would reassert themselves--and it not countered would eventually triumph. 
     The truth is that we can look forward to no rest. We can seek and find; but what we find today will be taken for granted--or rejected--tomorrow. And the search will begin anew. We can prove the great theorems today, but new theorems will take their place. The moral insights of tomorrow will make today's striving seem primitive.
     That is living, and we are well fitted for it."