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V. The event. The vocabulary of its essence [148–149]

                event of the difference, however, the departure, keeps itself utterly concealed. Nevertheless, in the self-clearing event the difference with respect to beings comes into the clearing, and above all the clearing of the departure eventuates into the downgoing of the beginning. Thereby the difference also comes into its full essential occurrence for the first time, since the clearing is proper to the difference and in no way merely depends on it as a way of becoming known. The event turns toward the abyss the concealment in the departure and unitarily turns toward what is grounded, namely, beings, the clearing in the difference. Out of this event-related turning, the event is counter-turning. This counter-turning conceals the essential belonging of the nihilation, i.e., of the inceptual (not the null) nothingness, to beyng. In the difference, in the departure, and in their event-related unity, there essentially occurs the event of nihilation. Nihilation is unfathomably distinct from all “negativity” and “negation,” for negativity (in Hegel’s sense) belongs to beingness and negation applies to beings. Thus “negativity” and “negation” fall on the side of beingness and beings and do not determine what is inceptually nihilating in the differentiating departure. Thought in terms of the history of beyng, both are consequences of the still-hidden event. The difference which is not yet sheltered in the abyss by way of departure and which, simply in emerging, radiates in the first beginning—this difference pervades the essence of metaphysics. But if the difference as such, i.e., at the same time in the departure, is cleared, there eventuates the twisting free of the difference into the abyss. Out of the twisting free, the overcoming of metaphysics is disposed, and toward it the consummation of metaphysics and its demise are already moving, to be sure without being known by metaphysics. In contrast, the first consummation of metaphysics in Hegel’s absolute idealism believes the truth of beings has been attained and secured; the second consummation in the metaphysics of the will to power takes the

Martin Heidegger (GA 71) The Event