“. . .  change comes so slowly we don’t see it, except when we clip our fingernails.”

I was only a kid when I first saw the words. ‘Perpetual Motion’ and they were on a large outdoor sign and,  with my interest piqued, I’ve listened as it’s been debated on radio, TV and in magazines. But I first saw them when Dad was taking the family on a Sunday ride to see the Countryside,

And, as an aside, exactly when and where did the countryside go??? Is it still there under concrete waiting for you to re-discover and give it back to us? Oh, that’s for another day.   Perhaps another life time, for if we dug it up, where would we put all the discarded concrete and the people living there?????

But, my words, today, are my answer to the subject of what or where is Perpetual Motion and which, for some reason, I’ve listened to ever since I learned how to read., and that’s been more than a year or two.

Those childhood rides however, formed memories I recall with wonder and love.. There were no Freeways, just two-lane roads winding across and around large corn or wheat fields, with barns, chicken coops, and old fashioned outside toilets a familiar sight.. But also, large companies would pay the farmer for permission to put large signboards there in his fields, and the names of ZCMI, AUERBACH’S, KEITH O’BRIEN, PEMBROKES, PARIS CO. and , as I said, PERPETUAL MOTION. were placed there to lure us to their stores.   It was a different countryside, which slowly changed into what we have to day. Priceless.

But at that time scientists were constantly seeking to find some machine to produce Perpetual Motion. And over and over we would hear of that search, but no one, as far as I know has done so. And last week, I laughed over a few of my old notes, for they are my answer to Perpetual Motion, But as you know, I have lots of ideas . . . . of my own.  So . . . .

Change, I’ve come to believe, is Perpetual Motion. Change, everything is changing,   And no matter what we look at or even think of, is changing. And while I’m no ‘brain’, I still have my days and even have a book about Einstein that I get out occasionally. And, that genius never spoke of God, but did speak or write of some Power that is the Source of all and called it The Essence of pure energy. Ever-changing, but never disappearing.  Einstein’s words, not mine.

And so, I searched for more of his words (good old Google) to find if he spoke more of how Energy is ever changing, but never disappearing, and no doubt he did . . . . but in words that are beyond my scope. However the thought remained with me, that the only perpetual motion in the world, no matter when, where or how, is Change.

From the most minuscule part of an atom . . . . change. Water, ever changing from steam, cloud, ocean, urine, ice, glacier, to the Soup Pot on my kitchen stove. Form after form, but basically, water. Then there’s our entire Planet of rock, sand, animal, leaves, all changing slowly from one form to another. Universe, planet, moons, stars, changing . Trees, wild or tame animals, plants, seeds, dry leaves, excrement. The same basic material, but never the same. Change, change, change.

I gotta think about this one, and you smart ones who might stumble upon my words, give it a thought. This world and all that’s in it, is changing. Is it the long sought answer to Perpetual Motion????.   So simple, so commonplace??? Maybe too simple? Maybe too commonplace? So simple and commonplace that we never consider it.

But, like it or not, all we are, see, or hold, is changing, even as we look upon ir. Our hair, toe nails. People were discussing the earthquakes of a week or so ago, and one stated that the earth, deep down under Nepal moves each year, the distance of how much your fingernail grows in the same length of time. But that small change, builds up, until it eventually shifts the weight of the mountain side, and we have an earthquake.

The people who lived on this sphere thousands of years ago, with time and change, change, change, became you and me. And we, all who are living now,   are and will change, and slowly surely, become those who will  change the world of ‘then’.

Follow me???   We’re all part of it.

Change, Perpetual Change. Perpetual Motion. And you can answer back about that bane or blessing of today’s world . . . plastic . . . and in spite of what Thor Heyerdahl, who with companions crossed the Pacific on a raft, said the ocean, once you got 10 or so miles from shore, was so pure. Unchanged.

Then, only half a century later he and others took the same trip accompanied by scientists, and he wept as he said they never got away from the debris of plastic. All across the Pacific, California to China, was our discarded plastic garbage. But I again cynically say give it time and in a few thousands millennia the plastic will be gone, but, only because it will have changed into some new form of garbage.

To me, ‘Change’ is Perpetual Motion, and we are part of it. Right before our eyes, in our hands, and remember. our actual hands and eyes are part of it. Only it comes so slowly we don’t see it, except when we clip our fingernails.   But we need look no further, for we, you and I  and the entire world we live in and upon, are perfect examples of the very thing we seek. Perpetual Motion.