In the earliest part of the second century AD, the Roman Emperor Trajan waged war on a barbarian nation to the west in the land that is now Romania. The treasure that he brought back to Roman coffers was legendary, and a tower over 120 feet tall was erected in his honor, topped with a bronze statue that would be replaced 1400 years later by a rendition of St. Peter in an attempt by the Vatican to sanctify the ancient landmark.

The cast-aside statue of Trajan depicted the warrior-emperor holding a staff in one hand and a globe in the other. The Romans knew, 100 years after the advent of Christ, that the world was round. By the time St. Peter’s statue was hoisted to replace Trajan on the column, the world, ensconced in the shroud of the dark ages, would have forgotten this knowledge and would be operating on the superstitious assumption that the world was flat. Give humans a thousand years and we’ll forget everything we ever knew.

If you labor under the delusion that we can’t regress, that we can’t go backwards into a darkness that we have emerged out of, you have not studied history. To believe that we are somehow in an automated, perpetual forward motion as a species is a fallacy, and one that I am guilty of. The movement of time does not guarantee the progress of humanity. Small deviances from truth can lead to catastrophic trajectories, off course from the promise that we have glimpsed. But this is the cyclic nature of history.

In his post-apocalyptic novel Those Who Remain, G. Michael Hopf postulates that “Hard Times Create Strong Men, Strong Men Create Good Times, Good Times Create Weak Men, Weak Men Create Hard Times.” The level of comfort we find in the present status of civilization has caused us to forget how recently this status was challenged, and makes us reluctant to give credence to any imminent threat. But Rome fell from great heights. And in the living memory of our own culture, we have known very real threats to the fabric of civilization in the form of genocide, slavery, and the denial of our own history.

The theme of new beginnings from tragic and unplanned endings keeps re-emerging in my own life lately, on several fronts. I am keenly aware of the instability of comfort and the transient nature of peace and tranquility. The only thing that saves me from catastrophe are the lessons my past has taught me. To remember the truth and knowledge I have gained from experience. The same is true for the human species.

At the height of the Roman Empire, life expectancy for human beings was 72 years. A thousand years later during the dark ages, it was in the low 30s. We forgot the lessons we learned. We allowed superstitious religion and leaders who feared enlightenment, education and independent thought above all else to rule the world. The cycle of power repeats itself. Our fear of the things we cannot control gives way to blind faith and we lose contact with the knowledge we have gained. If we forget that the world is round because we have erased the reminders, we can eventually be led to believe that it is flat. Trajan was replaced by St. Peter atop the column in Rome, but what was the tradeoff? What are we trading now as we exchange our memories for sanctification?