the engineer must /negotiate/ with the mountain at every stage of the project, testing to see where the rock resists and where it yields, and is quite often surprised by the behaviour of the rock.
(making stuff keeps you honest because nothing can ever be reduced to anything else. Latour irreducibility)
it is impossible to derive one thing instantly from another without the needed labour
Actors become more real by making larger parts of the cosmos vibrate in harmony with their goals, or by taking detours in their goals to capitalize on the force of nearby actants.
It is never the actant in naked purity that possesses force, but only the actant involved in its ramshackle associations with others, which collapse if these associations are not lovingly maintained.