In your view, what life stage is the human family in?

I  read this powerful paragraph late last night when I opened a new book I bought a few weeks ago. It seems appropriate for today's question.

"There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation.  There is no one  here but us chickens, and so it has always been:  a people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful, and self-aware; a people who scheme,  promote, deceive, and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death.  It is a weakining and discolouing idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time ---or even knew selflessness or courage or literature---but that it is too late for us.  In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age.  There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less."

~~~Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

From the book 'THE WISDOM OF YOGA - A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living" by Stephen Cope