"I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Summary science shall have the existence of mankind in its power and the human race commit suicide by blowing up the world."

- Henry Adams, April 11 1862

frighteningly accurate foresight 

abandon self-interest, find oneself

In the context of Mark's Gospel, where Jesus says to take up your cross and follow, D.A. Carson writes:

the alternative is to forfeit one’s soul. It is to gain the approval of the “world” and Jesus’ disapproval. The confrontation between, on the one hand, Jesus and his kingdom, and, on the other, the world he has come to redeem, is so total that one necessarily sides with one or the other. The irony is that those who “lose” their lives by this “crucifixion” thereby find their lives. They discover what they had always denied before: they belong to God by creation, and they can never find themselves, never be fulfilled, never realize their potential, unless they abandon self-interest and abandon themselves to God. But as long as that takes place in this rebellious and self-focused world, suffering and opposition are inevitable.  ...

It is beginning to cost something to be a Christian; and perhaps the church will be purer for it.

http://ref.ly/o/howlonglord/167304 via the Logos Bible Android app.