The mere thingness of things, indifferent, co-existent, objective and demystified is a considerable achievement of consciousness. A slight change is enough for the world to change into a seething and paranoic realm of portents and magical forces, a place of shadows in which the border between self and other, between subject and object, waking and dream is dissolved. How long did it take us to emerge from such a reality? And how we long to return and to master it and tame it, to retrieve all that was left behind.