Kekulé, Fran and Ollie

Shit. Can't deal with no BENZENE TRANSISTOR without throwing a Thomas Pynchon reference atcha. Now, y'all know, back in the 19th century, Kekulé was stuck with the molecular structure of the Benzene molecule? Couldn't figure the damn thing out, see. Then he had him a dream with that there eternal snake chomping its tail in its mouth. That dream solved the whole dang problem! And, whaddya know, folks come up with all kinds of evil shit based on the Benzene molecule Kekulé glimpsed in that there vision. Yep.

Anyhoo, that there's the context for this here quote from Gravity's Rainbow:

Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, "The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning," is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that "productivity" and "earnings" keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity -- most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand that it's only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to being with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which must sooner or later crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply, dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life.

--Gravity's Rainbow, V412