Novelty is definitely a concept that drives many humans. But while for some it is all about getting a new toy, for others it is the novelty in their understanding of the world around and within them that drives them to utter gratitude.
Terrence McKenna often framed novelty as an invisible force permeating all existence:
"I have proposed the existence of an invisible, permeating something that is throughout all being, all time, all space, all bodies, all thoughts, which I call novelty. And the interesting thing about novelty is that it's increasing constantly."
He equated it with "density of connection", connectivity, and "complex non-equilibrium thermodynamic states that sustain themselves far from equilibrium," using examples like human bodies, societies, and ecosystems. He saw history as a struggle between habit (conservatism and tradition) and novelty (innovation and change), with nature inherently favoring the novel:
"You could almost say that nature abhors habit. And so it seeks the novel by producing various kinds of phenomena at every level in biology, chemistry, and society."
He argued that psychedelics could "blast through" these cultural constraints to access novel states of consciousness. And since then it has been discovered that DMT is produced in the human body naturally, which is why some people who never used mushrooms or anything like it, still have this undeniable "Lust for Clarity"!
