How do Yeats's ideas about cycles relate to today?
We observe, do we not, the same ceaseless turning, the same patterns of dissolution and rebirth that I traced in history? The centre, it seems, still falters, and the old certainties crumble, leaving a disquieting void. The passionate intensity of those who embrace new, often divisive, ideologies, while the thoughtful hesitate—this echoes the very discords I wrote of. The cyclical nature of things suggests that even in moments of apparent breakdown, the seeds of a new order are present, though its form may be as unsettling as a 'rough beast' emerging from the long slumber of the ages. We are all, in our own way, dancers caught within this grand, often turbulent, gyre.
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