From “Activation of Energy” By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.

Until now, one might say, men [sic] were living
both dispersed and at the same time closed in on themselves,
like passengers in a ship who have met by chance below decks
with no idea of its mobile character and its motion.
They could, accordingly, think of nothing to do on the earth
that brought them together but to quarrel or amuse themselves.
And now, by chance, or rather as a normal effect of growing older,
we have just opened our eyes.
The boldest of us have found their way to the deck.
They have seen the vessel that was carrying us along.
They have marked the creaming of her bow wave.
They have realized that there are boilers to be stoked
and a wheel to be manned.
And most important of all,
they have seen the clouds floating overhead,
they have savored the sweet scent of the Western Isles,
over the curve of the horizon:
it ceases to be the restless human to-and-fro on the same spot;
it is no longer a drifting – it is the voyage.