Perpetuum Mobile

Perpetuum Mobile—perpetual motion—isn’t that what our lives have become?

Take a moment to listen to this song (it really picks up at :20)


We are in constant search of what’s next. We beg for entertainment, something to occupy our minds and unfortunately, the things we find often in turn fill our souls. There is no substance to that. It’s all just sawdust—filler added to give meaningless weight to our waking lives.

We need to take a moment to break out, to discover the beauty around us, and rediscover the beauty of what is inside us. Sometimes, it requires us to look back. This song was written back the same year I was born, some quarter of a century ago. I find in its rolling melody something hauntingly beautiful. It somehow is able to capture the entire spectrum of human emotion into one succinct moment. Everything we collectively experience is present at once. The music draws me to utter heartbreak, but in the same moment I experience complete joy. I am conflicted by the beauty the notes combine to create. I am, though maybe only for a moment, able to understand that whatever pain I have felt or will feel in life is justified by the beauty of what is able to come afterwards. It may be that the lesson is one we spend our lives learning over and over again: To really be able to break away from our fear of pain, or loss, or inadequacy, we must be willing to lose our fear of quietness and be willing to reflect on what is deep inside us. The irony is that, at least in this case, it takes hearing perpetual motion to break you from the spinning fly-wheel of modern life.

Or perhaps the lesson is that somewhere within all the calamity that surrounds us, we can find some sense of peace. Up close, the rapid, successive beats of our lives seem to be only random noise. But when we are able to step back, to take in the our life as a whole, we find a magnificent flowing rhythm. We find that within the noise all around, us there is something beautiful to behold. We learn to uncover the beautiful parts of our world, which often turn out to be the people who surround us. Our Perpetuum Mobile becomes more than perpetual motion, but perpetual meaning as we embrace life to its fullest.