Always and everywhere, human beings have felt the radical inadequacy of their personal existence, the misery of being their insulated selves. Exploring the world around him, primitive man evidently “tried all things and held fast to that which was good.” For the purposes of self-preservation, the good is every edible fruit and leaf, every wholesome root, seed, or nut. But in another context—the context of self-dissatisfaction and the desire for self-transcendence—the good is everything in nature by means of which the quality of individual consciousness can be changed.
What matters is the awareness, if only for an hour or two, if only for a few minutes, of being someone, or more often something, other than the insulated self.