it is a blur

I think that since the advent of science the sense that the world is moving too fast, or that things are spinning out of control, has been constant. I frequently have the sickening sensation that this roller coaster we are on has no operator. Current events are what give me that sensation. After a particularly horrific week of news I will feel like my actions have no bearing on the propulsion of our collective steps forward. I mean, how can there be corrupt politicians, and a deteriorating environment, and war, natural disaster, murder, homelessness, poverty, oppression...and I have no ability to change things? I know all the arguments here and I am not making these statements as a cry for an 'It will all be ok' comment or a 'hang in there' attitude like some silly kitten dangling from a tree branch sympathy card. I simply find it interesting that this feeling is so recurring and that I always feel as if things are more out of control now than ever before - which is ridiculous. I was reading Carter Beats the Devil (thank you Arctic Actor for the recommendation) and there is a passage in the book where one of the characters, living in the 1920's, is reading the paper and feeling this same sense of bewilderment that I describe above. Ken Wilbur says that (and I paraphrase here) "Science is our search for truth, and religion, our search for meaning." If I follow this idea (which I find to be true) than it basically means that since humans have become enlightened and driven enough to seek truth, we have not worked on our self control with equal intensity. Most possibly this has to do with the fact that science has given us the ability to speed up the tasks of life. Now we can attack a country 1000 times faster than before the industrial age. We can pollute faster, invent faster, build faster, discover faster. But self control - hmm, not doing so good.