For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection as an essential element in our survival. Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game – none of them lasts forever. It is beyond our powers to predict the future. Catastrophic events have a way of sneaking up on us, of catching us unaware. Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few – drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds. Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas . . .”
Carl Sagan: Pale Blue Dot
Wanderes is a video inspired by this quote.
Nehaveigur 
3 responses to “Pale Blue Dot: A Restless Few”
[…] people and seeing giraffes, zebras and elephants roam free. Ever since, I’ve been drawn, by a craving I can hardly articulate or understand, to remote lands and open […]
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[…] The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. I was curious if someone has made a list of long-distance hiking trails, and of course the answer is yes. Worldwide, there are 46 trails longer than 1,000 kilometers that are passing through mostly wild areas with natural trail surfaces. The world’s longest trail is the not-so-romantically named E4, which starts in Portugal and ends in Greece and Cyprus, passing several South and Central European countries on the way. It’s also the only trail that’s longer than 10,000 kilometers, although this is cheating a bit since some of it is on the islands of Crete and Cyprus and therefore not contiguous with the rest of the trail. […]
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[…] to keep the crew alive. I also think that the real value of a Mars mission isn’t science but inspiration. Sending people on this journey and telling the rest of us what it’s like is a noble goal. If […]
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