After the First Country had learned that the world made possibilities through its relations, the people began to notice that two words were often spoken as though they meant the same thing.
Possibility.
Potential.
No one could quite say why the country needed both.
Then, one morning, a traveller came to the King's garden.
There was a door in the garden wall.
It stood open.
Beyond it was a path winding between fig trees, across a little bridge, and down toward the river.
The traveller looked through the doorway.
“Can I go through?”
The gatekeeper nodded.
“Yes.”
The traveller stepped forward.
He was a strong man, accustomed to walking long distances. He could climb hills, cross fields, and follow roads from one end of the country to the other.
He placed his foot across the threshold.
Then he stopped.
An old woman was sitting beside the wall.
She had been watching him.
“Why do you stop?” she asked.
“I am wondering whether I can go through.”
The old woman looked at the open door.
“It seems that you can.”
The traveller laughed.
“Yes. That is what I thought.”
And he walked into the garden.
The next morning, the King ordered the door locked.
The traveller returned.
The garden was unchanged.
The path was still there.
The bridge still crossed the stream.
The fig trees still stood in the sunlight.
The traveller was still strong.
He could still walk.
He placed his hand upon the door.
It would not open.
He pushed.
Nothing happened.
He stepped back.
Then he looked down at his feet.
They were exactly as they had been the day before.
His legs had not weakened.
His strength had not diminished.
He could still walk as far as he pleased.
Yet he could no longer enter the garden.
The old woman was sitting beneath the same tree.
She looked at him.
“What has changed?”
“The door.”
“And you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what has disappeared?”
The traveller looked again at the locked door.
“The way through.”
The old woman nodded.
“The possibility.”
The traveller considered this.
“But I can still walk.”
“Yes.”
He looked puzzled.
“Then perhaps the two things are not the same.”
That evening, the youngest philosopher heard the story.
She went to the garden.
The door was still locked.
She placed her hand upon it.
Then she walked around the wall.
On the other side she found another traveller.
This one was sitting beside the river.
He had a small boat beside him.
He could not climb the wall.
He could not pass through the door.
But the river afforded him another way into the garden.
The youngest philosopher watched him push the boat into the water.
She began to understand.
The same country did not offer the same possibilities to everyone.
The world left some things open.
But what was open to the world was not necessarily something every participant could take up.
She returned to the locked door.
A bird flew over the wall.
A child crawled beneath a gap in the hedge.
A woman walked around the garden.
A man waited beside the river.
The door was one thing.
The possibilities of the country were another.
And each traveller stood differently within them.
The youngest philosopher went to the Hall of Languages.
There, among the old tablets, she found two words written beside one another.
One concerned what might happen.
The other concerned what someone might be prepared or able to do.
She read the tablets several times.
Then she looked out through the high window.
The door.
The traveller.
The garden.
The river.
The boat.
The bird.
Suddenly the distinction seemed clear.
The open door established a possibility.
But the possibility of passage did not tell her whether every traveller could pass through it.
The possibility belonged to the organisation of the place.
The ability belonged to the one who stood within it.
She returned to the garden.
By then the King had unlocked the door again.
The strong traveller arrived.
He walked through.
A woman in a wheeled chair arrived.
She looked at the threshold.
For her, the narrow doorway did not offer the same passage.
The King widened it.
Now she could enter.
Nothing about the garden had changed.
Nothing about her had changed.
But the relation between them had changed.
And with it, something new became possible.
The youngest philosopher stood quietly beside the door.
She thought of the swimmer who had stood beside the dry river.
The water could make swimming possible.
But the water alone could not swim.
She thought of the bird.
The branch could support it.
But the branch did not fly.
She thought of the child who had learned a new word.
The language could make a distinction available.
But the distinction did not enter the child's speech merely because the language permitted it.
There was always something more.
A participant.
A situation.
A relation between them.
The old philosopher came to stand beside her.
She told him what she had discovered.
“So,” he said, “which comes first?”
She looked at the door.
“Possibility?”
“And then?”
“Potential?”
He shook his head.
She thought again.
“No.”
The old philosopher waited.
“Perhaps potential is not something that comes after possibility.”
“Then what is it?”
She looked at the travellers moving through the garden.
“It is what happens when a possibility has a participant.”
The old philosopher smiled.
“Perhaps.”
They watched the strong traveller walk toward the river.
He could swim.
The river was full.
He stepped into the water.
His potential met a possibility.
And something happened.
He crossed.
The youngest philosopher followed him with her eyes.
Perhaps this was the beginning of becoming.
Not possibility alone.
Not potential alone.
But a possibility that a participant could take up.
That night she returned to the Hall of Languages.
She found the two old tablets again.
The first spoke of what might happen.
The second spoke of readiness, inclination, and ability.
She placed them side by side.
Then beneath them she wrote:
What can happen here?
And:
What can this participant do or become here?
She stood back.
The first question seemed to belong to the world.
The second seemed to belong to the participant within the world.
Yet neither could be understood without the other.
For there could be a road without a traveller.
There could be a traveller without a road.
There could be water without a swimmer.
There could be a swimmer without water.
There could be a language in which a distinction could be made, without a speaker yet able to make it.
And there could be a participant ready for something for which the world had made no opening.
Possibility and potential could therefore part company.
The door could be open while the walker was unable to pass.
The walker could be able to walk while the door was closed.
Neither created the other.
Something had to bring them together.
A relation.
The youngest philosopher returned once more to the garden.
The door stood open.
The path beyond it disappeared into the trees.
She stood upon the threshold.
For a moment she did nothing.
Then she stepped forward.
The possibility had been there.
The capacity had been there.
But neither had yet become a journey.
Now it had.
She looked back at the doorway.
It had not moved.
Yet the world was no longer quite the same.
A possibility had been taken up.
Something had become actual.
And because it had become actual, the relations of the country would never again be exactly what they had been.
The youngest philosopher smiled.
Perhaps this was the distinction they had been seeking.
Possibility is what the world leaves open.
Potential is what a participant is ready or able to take up within that opening.
She looked down the path.
Then she wondered:
If possibility is the openness of becoming,
and potential is the readiness to participate in it,
what happens when the two meet?
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