Why hadn't he seen it before?
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Because he was sober. We're often warned against driving or operating heavy machinery or engaging in sexual activity while drunk because it limits the scope of our abilities to see things as they are. We're not often warned against the danger of merely thinking about stuff while drunk. But it's the same concept. It's easy to understand that your reaction times are lessened while drunk so you shouldn't drive (also your eyesight becomes fuzzier and your brain dumber). It's also easy to understand that maybe buffing a floor with a high powered buffer could get dicey. It's maybe less understandable for some how engaging in sexual activity should be limited by how drunk you or the other person is because, for loads and loads of them, getting drunk (or getting somebody else drunk) is the only way they can get laid. But if your rationality is hampered, so is your ability to recognize or give consent. But thinking?! Why, that's the easiest thing in the world to do! And it's sometimes more fun when you're drunk! Why would anybody warn against thinking at a time like that?!
I think most people have an unconscious understanding that thinking is bad when you're drunk which is why sports exists. It's a great way to get drunk while not having to think about anything but how stupid the uniforms of the team playing against your favorite team look when that team is beating the fucking pants off of your team and you can't find any other way to feel superior to them or their fans. Concerts are good for getting drunk at as well because you don't need to think while rocking out to your favorite rap or country or boy group.
I think another reason thinking while drinking is dangerous is because alcohol is a depressant and if you think too much while drunk, you're eventually going to probably kill yourself. Please don't think and drink!
"Why hadn't he seen it"
Obviously there isn't much to say about this line on its own. But that's what this blog is about so let me say just this tiny little bit: seeing is revelation. It's incorporating evidence into your understanding of the world via the medium of light. Light as illumination and knowledge and change being the theme of this book, or, at least, this section. Perhaps what Pynchon is stating here and the previous (and probably aft) sentences is that alcohol works much the same way as light. It helps one to see things, if not clearly, at least from a different perspective. Like two observers seeing two different events at differing times based on their distance from the object or their movement away or toward that object. Hint, hint!
