Chapter Two
Craft and Beauty
They say all things began as nothing. I should believe this, but it is di cult to conceive of nothing in the middle of a world that is so full. I close my eyes and try to picture a darkness, but even that is something. We are told that there was a big bang at the beginning of time that created the universe, but this turns creation into a spectacle. I’m skeptical of showmanship. The romantic in me wants to imagine there was no ash, no bang. Perhaps instead there was a quiet dignity to the spurring of matter from nothingness. I tell myself a story to draw back the darkness and fill the void.
In the beginning, a voice slowly approached from afar, so unhurried that it was hardly noticeable. “Better,” it whispered. But no bang, no reworks. No grand gestures or swipes of God. The secret closed in and contained the void, like how a hushed, familiar voice in the dark can create a pocket of warmth around it. I picture how the loose gases rmed to make the planets. The spheres spun, and the atoms collided and combined in uncountable ways over billions of years. The cocktail thickened and congealed, and after an unimaginable number of attempts, life showed up, sprawled out, then pushed on. We gained hearts and eyes, legs and hands. We crawled out of the muck, climbed into the trees, and eventually came back down.
From The Shape of Design