§0.01 — Is it really necessary to be so cryptic? This question will do, as a trigger. It seems – however querulously – to ask everything our title seeks to, and more than a book is able to comprehensively engage. The implicit reciprocal: Is it not possible to be clear? What begins with a minor irruption of cognitive irritation, agitated by a few specific words, opens into a history of secrecy invested with hazily-discernible momentum, and beyond, into the dark Herakleitean gnosis – matrix and crypt of Occidental philosophy – Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ (“Nature loves to hide”).[2] The provocation of integral obscurity leads to the 10,000 things.