Were they to begin the long road? To telescope its distance? Would they be able to continue living without peopling the trees, the streams, the clouds, the winds, with spirits benign and vengeful—created in their own image? Could they continue to live alone in the universe?
Yes, that was the thing he had missed. Loneliness.
In separating himself from the animals, man had cut off his kinship with them. And so he found companionship with the gods. And cutting himself off from the gods ...
Loneliness.
Was man the only thing aware throughout the universe? What purpose then his exploration of it? What might he find that he had not already found?
Already, like a minor thread almost unheard in the symphony of exploding exploration, the questions of the artists were already finding themselves woven into music, painting, literature.
"Are we alone? In all this glittering, sterile universe, are there none other than we who are aware?"
The theme would expand as the purposelessness of colonizing still more and more worlds became wider known. The minor would become major, the recessive dominant. The endless aim of non-science to make all others subservient had lost its purpose for those who could still think. The dominion over things instead of people, the goal of science—was that also to lose its purpose for those who could still think? Until man, defeated by purposelessness, sank back in apathy, lost the very willingness to live—and so died?
What if some other awareness did inhabit the universe, sentient—and lonely? What if, farther along in its explorations, it was feeling that apathy? Facing that dissolution?
When one is lonely, the sensible thing is to seek companionship! To discover in companionship purpose not apparent to the alone—or at least hope to discover it.