Modernity is often celebrated as the triumph of progress. From scientific discovery to technological innovation, from medicine to human rights, the march of time is assumed to bring improvement. History is seen not as a cycle or a revelation, but as a line leading ever forward. In this vision, the future is the land of possibility, and the past is a field of failure. This myth of progress underlies not only our technologies, but our values, our education, and our self-understanding. But what if this belief is not only misleading—what if it is the very foundation of our confusion?
The False Horizon of Becoming
The belief in progress is, at heart, a metaphysical position. It assumes that what does not yet exist is better than what already is. It places truth, meaning, and fulfillment not in the eternal, but in the future—in what might be achieved, invented, or evolved into. It turns history into an arrow, a project to be completed, rather than a field in which the eternal appears.
But the Structure of Being teaches us that what is, cannot not be. Truth does not grow, and Being does not improve. Rather, it appears ever more fully. What seems like improvement is often the unveiling of what already was. To believe in progress is to believe that reality is becoming. And that is the essence of nihilism—to treat what is as if it were nothing yet, as if it must be made, perfected, or discovered by our own efforts.
The Cult of Innovation
It is no surprise, then, that our culture worships the new. Every generation wants to be freer, more advanced, more enlightened than the one before. New devices promise liberation; new ideas promise justice. But this pursuit of the new is often a disguised rejection of necessity. It refuses to listen to the past not because the past was wrong, but because the past is assumed to be obsolete.
In this rejection, every foundation is eroded. Elders are no longer guides, traditions are no longer trusted, and even the body, once seen as a gift and mystery, becomes a canvas for endless reconstruction. Identity becomes a project, history a burden, and the world a laboratory for self-invention.
When Progress Devours Itself
The myth of progress cannot sustain itself indefinitely. As each generation discards the wisdom of the last, it also loses the very conditions that made progress possible: continuity, memory, and meaning. Innovation becomes noise, speed becomes disorientation, and the promise of liberation gives way to confusion.
We are already witnessing this collapse. In a world saturated with novelty, attention fades. In a culture of endless options, freedom becomes paralysis. In a society that forgets its past, the future becomes terrifying rather than hopeful. And the young, promised empowerment, find themselves burdened with anxiety, rootlessness, and the weight of infinite self-construction.
Returning to What Cannot Be Surpassed
To awaken from the myth of progress is not to reject change or discovery. It is to understand that no future can improve upon what is eternal. The unfolding of Being is not a march toward perfection, but the eternal returning of what cannot not be. What is needed is not more novelty, but the clarity to see that all appearing, even that of change itself, belongs to a deeper order.
Only when we recognize that truth does not lie ahead, but always already is, can we begin to honor the past without sentimentality and face the future without illusion. Progress may offer tools, but it cannot offer foundations. Only the eternal can do that.
In the next article, we explore how the generational break is reinforced through the rejection of the past, especially in the name of trauma, harm, and institutional failure. What is the role of blame and victimhood in deepening the divide between generations?
It Is What It Is 
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