I wonder what it is they mean?
They mean humanity and the urge of it:
In the beginning and in the end the soul’s longing to be known, to know itself, and to know others;
And that means, in the beginning and in the end, the quest for love;
It is the ideal of love and the finding of it;
And the magic of it and the drain of disillusionment;
And the luxury of sorrow and the voluptuousness of suffering;
And the vacuum that is beyond death;
And the conviction that ideals are better than reality;
And the decision to live for “art”;