Perpetual Motion, Alfred Gockel.
Salvador Dali used to clean his bathroom with obsessive attention, meaning that he spent half the time breaking bottles of expensive perfume of his wife Gala, and half the time getting mad, which eventually led to breaking the remaining bottles.
It may sound arrogant, and it certainly is because there is no expensive Chanel bottles to break in my bathroom, yet I have this obsessive streak of character when the going gets tough, meaning I will spend hours on my knees carefully cleaning the floor of my home, from 17th century fireplace to the more recent royal oak of my library.
There is nothing like kneeling when your mind is suffering. Perhaps it is the genuflection with its therapeutic Christian symbolism. Perhaps it is what the Shakespearian characters would call the Right Altitude. But being on your knees introduces a wonderful change of perspective, so that Babushkas of Moscow subway can rejoice, they are indeed closer to Heaven than we are.
And yet even if generations of Samurai have advertised the genuflection as a ritual of survival, their sturdy legs and shorter stature have certainly contributed to supporting that ordeal. But Europeans are a proud people, marching to the sound of the gun, as true heir of the Greeks, who marched to battle in close formation, and full battle gear. This prevented the rational Greek to seek salvation in a hasty retreat. So that the eternal question remains unanswered. Are human wars a consequence of battle dress, as two hosts of naked men fighting to death would be a pleasant sight of shaking parts?
To any person deeply depressed I can also recommend going to the local supermarket. Of course the Euro-skeptical would argue, not without reason, that with the Euro, the buying power of Europeans has gone down the drain, but this journey is really worth taking for anyone interested in human nature.
As I was driving to that dreaded place on a Saturday late afternoon, I pondered essential issues of a man, like “What does it mean, the Right One?” or “Why on earth have American Cowboys that obsession to kill everybody, burn everything, and then cry and rebuild?” As I reflected upon those essential questions, I marveled at my ability to avoid the ballistic missiles of motorcycles, familial vans, and scooters.
So that slowly an idea emerged from that opera of fury and fastidiousness, and this idea is that perpetual movement is ruling the world of today. The question is not to know where we are going, but never to stop. Of course, there is no need to be a genius to understand that a youth spending his afternoon turning around a piazza, or a familial van shuttling from home to town, back and forth in repetition of a day at work, while the motorcyclists are a wonderful display by themselves. Clockwork precision, and same trajectory, so that there is no need for a watch.
Perpetual motion, what an incredible achievement, so much more impressive than the Einstein relativity theory, there is no need for explanation, or reason, the movement finds justification in its own movement. And politicians, engineers, scientists have perfectly understood that perpetual movement is ruling the world. Just listen to what they promise, what our inventions represent, or what our scientific breakthrough contribute to. With every new generation of iPod we are closer to the umbilical connection. With politicians we are entering the marvelous world of the perpetual change while nothing really is ever changing, hence the beauty of the game.
The true beauty of perpetual movement is that it keeps reinventing itself. Just ask your mother about the latest scientific breakthrough. She will listen in silence, and flatly nail the coffin of progress with a scornful “I already knew that as I was ten.”
The greatest purpose of any artist, beyond the securing of a sponsorship and above-average sexual services, has the beauty of the belly dancer approaching the farting finale. Yes, artists know how to point out that marvelous great wave of change like Hokusai represented it, always on the verge of engulfing us, but lo! we are still waiting. The world of Kubrick was about a bone pirouette in space, becoming a waltz of space shuttles. No, our story is about a bone pirouette, but which keeps on coming back at us.
Like the circle figure of the Yin and the Yang, in perpetual motion of completion, our society has designed a marvelous symphony of endless pirouettes. Rock is not so much music but rediscovering the art of smashing things. Classic music will always lead to invading a poorer neighboring country. And pop has the dramatic promise of a woman bringing you to the shore of a river, while you slowly realise she is a travesty.
Like a military parade, caddies are loaded and unloaded with their lot of happy or crying children, single parents with the eyes of a killer, while couples keep on grazing shoulders as if they were afraid to fall. As Hell is nothing but repetition, going to the supermarket is a wonderful reminder of how little money you have, of how hateful toys really are, and how depressing it is to see old women taking on vigilantes for a free knife offered for every part of cheese.
The supermarket is the true symbol of our society, all ages and social conditions shown in various positions with a caddie, some walking briskly as they have little money, others strolling the alleys for dog food as if it was a Cartier jewelry. It is also a huge victory of Homo Sapiens as the combined calculation power and projection statistics in terms of economics would humble a super computer. You want to introduce real changes in society, begin with the supermarket!
Perpetual movement has its own right, and even more so in that arena of consumption. Some families face the crisis with the stoic attitude of a Spartan. The darker the skies, the better we will fight on. As in Berlin in 1945, there should be slogans like “We will never surrender!” And considering the number of people with military dresses, from women with a rather ridiculous battle dress of black boots and short skirts, to men with heavy boots and green camouflage trousers, this is a reminder that we are fighting in Afghanistan.
The origins of perpetual movement can be found in our spiritual belief of God regularly cleansing Earth, and yet every new mankind keeps on walking in circles from Paradise to Hell. Certainly we are missing the perspective of a new life in a colony of Space, as we are the heir of conquerors and walkers. They used to keep on walking whatever happened, there was always another dawn, another mountain, another new frontier. J.R.R Tolkien told us about the sad story of the proud people of Numenor which could not conquer Death, and whose life span did not stop getting shorter, generation after generation.
Now that it is so trendy to be concerned with Planet Earth getting hot, we keep on inventing sophisticated ways of moving in circles, but there is no alternative really. Replace the European circle of stars with the symbol of recycling and you will have the same end result. From a people of inventors, of discoverers, we have become a people of recyclers. Diplomas are printed on recycled paper and will self-destruct like a parody of James Bond. But we shall be cautious, because generation after generation is digging more and more deeply, as perpetual movement is about Death too.
Death is not the final point, but the great Journey which shall begin anew. Our cells are constituted of atomic elements and matter, which have been forged in the deepest recesses of stars long extinguished. Because even stars contribute to the eternal movement, so that our life is but a spark compared to the recycling power of the universe.
As I drove home, I could not help but thinking about that Cathedral of Sainte Sophie, recycled in the Mosque of Istanbul with the adjunction of additional minarets. And how the stones of the Mosque are the stones with which the Romans built their monuments, before Emperor Constantine destroyed those monuments to use the stones for his new capital city. So that the very bones of that holy place are made of stones, assembled for Pagan rites, then Christian, and eventually Muslim. Architects have indeed a talent for recycling, as if a house could be anything else but walls, floor and windows. No, no, let us speculate: it is not a house, but a cavern. Hmm.
FREDERIC W. ERK
