R

E

A

D

T

H

I

N

K

C

R

E

A

T

E

Quite exploration and exploitation, but less considered, his agent may have been a clear survival value. It is not confined to a particular country or ethnic group. This is a pension of all members of the human species held in common. Since we first appeared, a few years ago, in East Africa, we have meandered around our planet. Also, it is now on every continent most remote islands, from pole to pole ...           Where Do We Go?     We were wanderers from the beginning. We knew every stand of tree for a hundred miles. When the fruits or nuts were ripe, we were there. We followed the herds in their annual migrations. We rejoiced in fresh meat. Through stealth, feint, ambush, and main-force assault, a few of us cooperating accomplished what many of us, each hunting alone, could not. We depended on one another. Making it on our own was as ludicrous to imagine as was settling down.             Working together, we protected our children from the lions and the hyenas. We taught them the skills they would need. And the tools. Then, as now, technology was the key to our survival.   When the drought was prolonged, or when an unsettling chill lingered in the summer air, our group moved on—sometimes to unknown lands. We sought a better place. And when we couldn't get on with the others in our little nomadic band, we left to find a more friendly bunch somewhere else. We could always begin again.   For 99.9 percent of the time since our species came to be, we were hunters and foragers, wanderers on the savannahs and the steppes. There were no border guards then, no customs officials. The frontier was everywhere. We were bounded only by the Earth and the ocean and the sky—plus occasional grumpy neighbors.   When the climate was congenial, though, when the food was plentiful, we were willing to stay put. Unadventurous. Overweight. Careless. In the last ten thousand years—an instant in our long history—we've abandoned the nomadic life. We've domesticated the plants and animals. Why chase the food when you can make it come to you?   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, 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..."   … [The] zest to explore and exploit, however thoughtless its agents may have been, has clear survival value. It is not restricted to any one nation or ethnic group. It is an endowment that all members of the human species hold in common.   Since we first emerged, a few million years ago in East Africa, we have meandered our way around the planet. There are now people on every continent and the remotest islands, from pole to pole...   Vast migrations of people—some voluntary, most not—have shaped the human condition. More of us flee from war, oppression, and famine today than at any other time in human history. As the Earth's climate changes in the coming decades, there are likely to be far greater numbers of environmental refugees. Better places will always call us. Tides of people will continue to ebb and flow across the planet. But the lands we run to now have already been settled. Other people, often unsympathetic to our plight, are there before us.   ... Our distant ancestors, watching the stars, noted five that did more than rise and set in stolid procession, as the so-called "fixed" stars did. These five had a curious and complex motion. Over the months they seemed to wander slowly among the stars. Sometimes they did loops. Today we call them planets, the Greek word for wanderers. It was, I imagine, a peculiarity our ancestors could relate to.   We know now that the planets are not stars, but other worlds, gravitationally lashed to the Sun. Just as the exploration of the Earth was being completed, we began to recognize it as one world among an uncounted multitude of others, circling the Sun or orbiting the other stars that make up the Milky Way galaxy. Our planet and our solar system are surrounded by a new world ocean—the depths of space. It is no more impassable than the last.   Maybe it's a little early. Maybe the time is not quite yet. But those worlds—promising untold opportunities—beckon.       — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space                         Indexes/16