To accept the notion of "becoming" as central involves both a tearing down and a freeing up to build. On the one hand, we have to watch certain notions that we like very much, formerly steady and eternal, sink and crumble into steaming, swirling murk. Some of these are pretty important navigational maps.

But then so on the other hand, as those maps disappear, the world behind them eventually (after some blind scrabbling around) starts to come into focus on its own terms.…