Recently I was referred to this passage from The Immense Journey (also the LorenEiseley.info Twitter handle @immensejourney).
It deserves a re-read. Where Eiseley writes of the “worldwide radio network” and “great news services” substitute “internet.” His observations are themselves a revelation of sorts.
The world, I have come to believe, is a very queer place, but we have been part of this queerness for so long that we tend to take it for granted. We rush to and fro like Mad Hatters upon our peculiar errands, all the time imagining our surroundings to be dull and ourselves quite ordinary creatures. Actually, there is nothing in the world to encourage this idea, but such is the mind of man, and this is why he finds it necessary from time to time to send emissaries into the wilderness in the hope of learning of great events, or plans in store for him, that will resuscitate his waning taste for life. His great news services, his worldwide radio network, he knows with a last remnant of healthy distrust will be of no use to him in this matter. No miracle can withstand a radio broadcast, and it is certain that it would be no miracle of it could. One must seek, then, what only the solitary approach can give — a natural revelation.
