the.com/permanence
the comforting lie nothing tells you while quietly rearranging its atoms behind your back
means The state of lasting indefinitely or remaining unchanged over time.
from From Latin permanere, 'to remain through' or 'stay to the end' — built from per- ('through, thoroughly') plus manere ('to stay, remain'). That manere is the same root behind 'mansion' (a place you stay) and 'remain' itself. The word reached English in the late Middle Ages by way of Old French, carrying its quiet promise that some things simply hold their ground — while the atoms, of course, never got the memo.
- diamonds
- slowly turning into graphite, just very politely
- radioactive clocks
- even isotopes have a half-life and quit
- the universe
- protons may eventually decay into nothing
- memory
- recalling a memory rewrites it every time
- continents
- drift apart at fingernail-growth speed
great pyramid of giza — still standing after 4,580 years, oldest surviving structure on earth
dead sea scrolls — texts preserved in qumran caves for over 2,000 years due to dry conditions