In the beginning
there was no beginning.

There was not yet the one
to be divided from the other,
nor a name to say:
here this ends
and there that begins.

There was neither order
nor disorder,

for both
would first have had to be distinguished.

There was the Abyss—

not emptiness,
not absence,

but that which had not yet decided
what it might become.

And within it
no ready-made design was sleeping,
no hidden architect,
no geometry of the future.

And yet
something could encounter something.

A difference
another difference.

A movement
a resistance.

A repetition
a deviation.

And from the encounter
a relation was born,

from the relation
a temporary form,

from the form
a duration,

and from duration
the first faint memory of the Cosmos.

The Cosmos was not organized.

It was organizable.

And this small difference
was its entire freedom.

For if it had already been organized,
nothing could ever truly happen.

And if it were absolutely unorganized,
nothing could ever endure.

There had, therefore,
to be enough order
for something to persist,

and enough Abyss
for something else
to begin.

The stone had to remain
stone long enough,

fire
had somehow to remember fire,

water
to repeat its inclinations,

the stars
to return faithfully enough,

and yet
none of these
could forever close
the path of the unexpected.

Thus Rhythm was born:

not as a law
governing the Cosmos,

but as a breathing
between duration and transformation.

Once,
a hand lifted a stone.

Perhaps another stone
had accidentally broken before it.

Perhaps a sharp edge
had opened a hide.

Perhaps chance
had whispered to the human
before the human had learned
to name chance.

But this time
the gaze remained.

It looked.

It compared.

It remembered.

This stone
does not break like that one.

This blow
does not leave the same edge.

This angle,
this force,
this sequence of strikes—

something repeats itself.

And then there occurred
one of the strangest events
in the history of the Cosmos:

the human saw
within one stone
a stone that did not yet exist.

Before the cutting edge
there was the image of the cutting edge.

Before the tool
the anticipation of the tool.

Before the act
the possibility of the act.

And the future,
perhaps for the first time,
began to act upon the present.

The hand struck the stone
according to a form
that did not yet exist.

And technics was born.

From then on
the human began to carry
the possible into the actual.

He learned fire.

He learned the seed.

He learned the wind.

He learned the water.

He bound wood to wood,
stone to stone,
day to day.

He measured the seasons.

He inscribed the heavens.

He gave names to the stars
so as not to become lost at sea.

He built storehouses
to preserve tomorrow.

He built walls
to keep the unpredictable outside.

And when he could not
keep death outside,

he created gods.

And the gods became lawmakers.

They divided light from darkness,
earth from heaven,
the permitted from the forbidden.

And later
a God became the Architect.

He measured the Cosmos.

He founded it.

He gave it laws.

And the human thought:

if the Cosmos was constructed according to Law,
then the Law can be read.

And if it can be read,
it can be calculated.

And if it can be calculated,
it can be predicted.

And if it can be predicted—

perhaps it can also be controlled.

And then
the great arithmetic of the Cosmos began.

Addition.

Subtraction.

Multiplication.

Division.

He added land to land
and called it property.

He subtracted the forest from the Cosmos
and called it timber.

He divided the earth
and drew borders.

He multiplied products
and called it growth.

He measured time
and called it labor.

He measured labor
and called it cost.

He measured cost
and called it value.

And at some point he forgot
that value
was not a number.

The forest indeed contained timber.

But it was not timber.

The river indeed contained energy.

But it was not energy.

The human indeed had a body,
neurons,
hormones,
heartbeats,

but was not
their sum.

Something always remained.

Something escaped
the equation.

And yet
the machine moved forward.

It learned to repeat.

To produce.

To accelerate.

To correct deviation.

To remove the unnecessary.

To reduce chance.

To transform
perhaps into probability,

probability into prediction,

prediction into program,

program into control.

And the human
who once held the tool

found himself one day
following its rhythm.

The machine no longer waited for the hand.

The hand waited for the machine.

Time was no longer
sunrise,
sunset,
season,
expectation.

It became minute.

Second.

Productive hour.

Deadline.

Performance.

And then prattein—
acting toward a determined end—
began to overshadow poiein—
creative bringing-forth.

“What do you want to achieve?”

“By what means?”

“In how much time?”

“At what cost?”

“With what return?”

And ever more rarely
was the other question heard:

Why?

Why this purpose?

Why this direction?

Why more?

Why faster?

Why more efficiently?

Why must every possibility
be realized
simply because
it can be realized?

And the machine,
perfect in its means,
remained silent
before the question of ends.