I'm reminded of Hunter S. Thompson's famous book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." It reflects on the decline of the 1960s counterculture movement. Here is the passage:

"There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave... So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

This quote is a poignant reflection on the fleeting nature of cultural revolutions and the inevitable decline that follows the peak of idealism.