The all-transcending mystery of the cosmic process is the only possible direction of the thrust of life, and hence of the possibility of freedom - whatever it may ultimately mean. Again, we are reminded of Augustine's idea that unless people looked in this direction, they were hopelessly curvatas, somehow less than fully human, fetishized and bent upon narrow and ignoble things. This was the difference between cupidditas and caritas, of love for things and love for God. And what is "love" for any living creature,except the sentiment that the universe is alive and significant - alive and significant according to the creature's own living energies.

~ Ernest Becker, Beyond Alienation