There was a time, the old stories say, when the world was already there.
The mountains were there.
The rivers were there.
The forests stretched from one horizon to another, and the sea moved beneath the changing sky.
Nothing was missing.
There were places.
There were seasons.
There were storms and fires, births and deaths, things that moved and things that remained.
The world was full.
So the people who lived in it believed that their task was simple.
They had only to discover what was there.
They sent hunters into the forests to find the animals.
They sent sailors across the sea to find the islands.
They sent watchers into the night to discover the stars.
And when they returned, they gave names to what they had found.
"This is a mountain."
"This is a river."
"This is a wolf."
"This is the beginning of the storm."
"This is the same tree we saw yesterday."
Their names multiplied.
Their knowledge grew.
And because the names seemed to fit the world so naturally, no one wondered where the things themselves had come from.
One day, however, a child asked an old keeper of stories a troublesome question.
"Grandmother, how did the first mountain become a mountain?"
The old woman smiled.
"It was always a mountain."
The child frowned.
"How do you know?"
"Because there it is."
"But how did we know it was that mountain?"
The old woman stopped smiling.
She looked towards the mountain.
The child continued.
"Before we called it a mountain, was it still the same mountain?"
"Of course."
"Then when did it become one mountain rather than the hill beside it?"
The old woman was silent.
"And when did the river become a river rather than water moving through the valley?"
Still she said nothing.
"And when did the storm begin?"
The old woman looked at the child carefully.
"Why do you ask such questions?"
"Because," said the child, "everything seems to be there. But I cannot see where one thing stops and another begins."
The old woman took the child's hand.
"Come with me."
She led the child to the edge of the forest.
They stood beneath a great tree.
"What do you see?"
"A tree."
"When did it begin?"
The child thought.
"When it grew from the seed."
"And before that?"
"A seed."
"And before that?"
The child hesitated.
"A tree that was not yet a tree?"
The old woman nodded.
"Perhaps."
She pointed towards the branches.
"Now tell me where the tree ends."
The child looked at the trunk.
"At the leaves."
"And the air between them?"
"Not the tree."
"The roots?"
"The tree."
"The soil around the roots?"
"Not the tree."
"The water inside it?"
The child stopped.
"I don't know."
"Good," said the old woman.
The child looked surprised.
"Why is not knowing good?"
"Because now you have begun to see the question."
They walked further.
At the edge of the forest they found a river.
"Where does the river begin?" asked the old woman.
The child pointed upstream.
"There."
"And where does it end?"
"There."
"What about the water that joins it?"
"The river."
"What about the water that leaves it?"
The child looked puzzled.
"Still the river?"
"Perhaps."
The old woman picked up a stone and dropped it into the current.
"Was that part of the river?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it is a stone."
"And how did you know?"
The child looked at the stone.
It was small and grey.
"I suppose because I can see that it is different."
"Ah," said the old woman.
She smiled.
"Different from what?"
The child looked at the river.
Then at the stone.
Then at the bank.
Then at the trees.
"I don't know."
"Exactly."
They sat beside the river.
For a long time neither spoke.
The child began to notice something strange.
The world had not become fuller.
Nothing new had appeared.
Yet the child was seeing more.
The stone stood out against the water.
The river separated itself from the bank.
The tree separated itself from the forest.
The moving water became a flow.
A particular sound became a bird.
A darkening sky became a storm approaching.
And something that had been there all along became distinguishable as something.
The child looked at the old woman.
"Did we make these things?"
"No."
"Then where did they come from?"
The old woman considered the question.
"They were always there."
"Then why did I not see them before?"
"Because seeing is not only opening your eyes."
The child waited.
The old woman continued.
"Something must become distinguishable before it can become something for you."
The child looked again at the stone.
"Then the stone is not just the stone?"
"It is the stone."
"But it is also what stands out from the river."
"Yes."
"And the river is what continues around it."
"Yes."
"And the tree is what persists while the leaves move."
"Yes."
The child began to understand something that could not quite be put into words.
The world had not been divided into things and then presented to them.
The things had become available through the distinctions by which they could be recognised.
The old woman stood.
"Come."
They walked until evening.
On the way they saw a deer.
The child whispered:
"Deer."
The animal moved through the trees.
The child watched it disappear.
"Was that the same deer we saw yesterday?"
The old woman smiled.
"How would you know?"
The child thought about this.
Because it had the same shape?
The same colour?
The same way of moving?
Because it occupied the same place in the forest?
The child realised that even sameness was not simply given.
Something had to count as the same.
Something had to count as different.
Something had to persist.
Something had to change.
The child stopped walking.
"Grandmother."
"Yes?"
"Is the world really made of things?"
The old woman looked towards the darkening forest.
"I would say that the world gives us enough for things to become possible."
"And then?"
"Then we learn how to find them."
"By naming them?"
"Naming comes later."
"Then how?"
The old woman pointed towards the path.
"By making a difference."
The child looked at the path.
It had been there all along.
But now it stood out from the grass.
The child suddenly saw what the old woman meant.
A difference did not have to be invented to matter.
The world itself could make differences possible.
But for a difference to become a thing, an event, a boundary, a cause, a beginning, an ending, or a possibility, it had to enter into some pattern through which it could become significant.
The child stood quietly beneath the trees.
Nothing in the forest had changed.
And yet everything seemed different.
The old woman placed her hand on the child's shoulder.
"Do you see?"
"I think so."
"What do you see?"
The child looked across the landscape.
"A world."
The old woman smiled.
"No."
The child looked puzzled.
"You see a world you can understand."
And then the old woman walked on.
The child followed.
From that day forward, the child never again thought of the world as a collection of things waiting patiently to be named.
The mountains remained mountains.
The rivers remained rivers.
The trees remained trees.
But now the child understood that these were not merely pieces of reality with names attached.
They were ways in which reality had become available.
A thing was something that could be distinguished.
An event was something whose happening could stand out from what continued around it.
A persisting object was something whose changing appearances could nevertheless count as the same.
A boundary was something that could matter as a boundary.
A cause was something that could become significant in relation to what followed.
And a possibility was something that could become available before it became actual.
The world had not been invented.
But neither had it arrived already divided into all the distinctions by which the child could understand it.
The old woman had given the child no new map.
She had done something stranger.
She had shown the child that the world one finds is never quite separable from the ways in which things have become findable.
And so the child grew old.
Years later, when people asked what the world was like, the child — now a keeper of stories — would sometimes answer:
"The world is there."
And when they nodded, satisfied, the old keeper would add:
"But do not mistake the world that is there for the world before anything has become intelligible within it."
Then the old keeper would point towards the mountain.
"Look."
And the people would look.
"Now tell me," the old keeper would say,
"what had to happen for you to see it as a mountain?"
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