Beginnings of things are not always evident when we look only at the thing about which we have uncertainty, a query or an inclination to explain or somehow make clear. Quite often in human affairs, our attempts to account for and explain a current state, takes into account a limited version of the entity, skipping past so much of its perhaps elusive and enriching context. We cannot go all the way back to the beginnings and origins of things every time, or out to the dramatic fullness of the interwoven fabric of structure every time. We would never stop.1
But, we do stop. Well before the fullness, so keep your inner eye on the wispy reasons for doing so. These flickers tell us where we are in the grand unplanned scheme of things for this particular phenomenon or occurrence.
- To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science. Stephen Weinberg, (Penguin Books, 2015)