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Standing Still
Standing-Still-Best-Of.mp3
Standing-Still-Best-Of.mp4
Standing-Still.mp3
Standing-Still.mp4
Standing-Still-Animation-1.mp4
Standing-Still-Animation-2.mp4
Standing-Still-intro.mp3
[Intro]
I’m…
Still standing still
(While I’m…
… moving through time)
[Verse 1]
Moving through calendar days
(In so many ways)
Round and round we go
(Where to stop… I don’t know)
[Chorus]
Step
(Into tomorrow)
Yet…
(Times borrowed)
[Bridge]
I’m…
Still standing still
(While moving through time)
… in time’s prime
[Verse 2]
Geometry collapses
(Time lapses)
The entire notion
(Is tied to motion)
[Chorus]
Step
(Into tomorrow)
Yet…
(Times borrowed)
[Bridge]
Spinning round
(Winding down)
Round and round
(Down, down, down)
I’m…
Still standing still
(While moving through time)
… in time’s prime
[Outro]
World turning
(Time’s churning)
My head is spinning
(Constructs thinning)
Spinning round
(Winding down)
Round and round
(Down, down, down)
Maybe tomorrow… it will be day all day?
Good night
ABOUT THE SCIENCE AND THE SONG
Standing at the North Pole creates one of the strangest experiences on Earth—where geography, time, and motion all blur together.
At the exact North Pole, you are standing on Earth’s axis of rotation. While you may feel perfectly still, the planet is spinning beneath you once every 24 hours. In that sense, you are continuously “traveling through time” as Earth rotates—though, of course, this is relative motion rather than science-fiction time travel. Unlike at the equator, where you are moving eastward at over 1,000 miles per hour due to Earth’s rotation, your linear speed at the pole is effectively zero, even though the planet is still turning.
Time itself behaves oddly there as well. All lines of longitude converge at the North Pole, which means every time zone on Earth technically meets at that single point. A few steps in any direction can place you in a different time zone, depending on how time is conventionally defined.
If you move just a short distance south from the pole, you can cross the International Date Line repeatedly. Take a single step across it one way, and it becomes “tomorrow.” Step back, and it is suddenly “yesterday.” By walking in a small circle around the pole, you could cross the International Date Line multiple times in minutes, effectively moving back and forth through calendar days.
This surreal experience highlights an important truth: time zones and dates are human constructs imposed on a rotating planet. At the poles, where Earth’s geometry collapses longitude into a single point, those constructs lose their usual meaning. Day and night do too—there is only one sunrise and one sunset per year, separated by six months of daylight followed by six months of darkness.
The North Pole is not just a geographic curiosity; it is a place where the abstract systems humans use to measure time are laid bare, revealing how deeply they are tied to Earth’s physical motion rather than any absolute flow of time.
From the album “Arctic“
View all episodes
By Standing-Still-Best-Of.mp3
Standing-Still-Best-Of.mp4
Standing-Still.mp3
Standing-Still.mp4
Standing-Still-Animation-1.mp4
Standing-Still-Animation-2.mp4
Standing-Still-intro.mp3
[Intro]
I’m…
Still standing still
(While I’m…
… moving through time)
[Verse 1]
Moving through calendar days
(In so many ways)
Round and round we go
(Where to stop… I don’t know)
[Chorus]
Step
(Into tomorrow)
Yet…
(Times borrowed)
[Bridge]
I’m…
Still standing still
(While moving through time)
… in time’s prime
[Verse 2]
Geometry collapses
(Time lapses)
The entire notion
(Is tied to motion)
[Chorus]
Step
(Into tomorrow)
Yet…
(Times borrowed)
[Bridge]
Spinning round
(Winding down)
Round and round
(Down, down, down)
I’m…
Still standing still
(While moving through time)
… in time’s prime
[Outro]
World turning
(Time’s churning)
My head is spinning
(Constructs thinning)
Spinning round
(Winding down)
Round and round
(Down, down, down)
Maybe tomorrow… it will be day all day?
Good night
ABOUT THE SCIENCE AND THE SONG
Standing at the North Pole creates one of the strangest experiences on Earth—where geography, time, and motion all blur together.
At the exact North Pole, you are standing on Earth’s axis of rotation. While you may feel perfectly still, the planet is spinning beneath you once every 24 hours. In that sense, you are continuously “traveling through time” as Earth rotates—though, of course, this is relative motion rather than science-fiction time travel. Unlike at the equator, where you are moving eastward at over 1,000 miles per hour due to Earth’s rotation, your linear speed at the pole is effectively zero, even though the planet is still turning.
Time itself behaves oddly there as well. All lines of longitude converge at the North Pole, which means every time zone on Earth technically meets at that single point. A few steps in any direction can place you in a different time zone, depending on how time is conventionally defined.
If you move just a short distance south from the pole, you can cross the International Date Line repeatedly. Take a single step across it one way, and it becomes “tomorrow.” Step back, and it is suddenly “yesterday.” By walking in a small circle around the pole, you could cross the International Date Line multiple times in minutes, effectively moving back and forth through calendar days.
This surreal experience highlights an important truth: time zones and dates are human constructs imposed on a rotating planet. At the poles, where Earth’s geometry collapses longitude into a single point, those constructs lose their usual meaning. Day and night do too—there is only one sunrise and one sunset per year, separated by six months of daylight followed by six months of darkness.
The North Pole is not just a geographic curiosity; it is a place where the abstract systems humans use to measure time are laid bare, revealing how deeply they are tied to Earth’s physical motion rather than any absolute flow of time.
From the album “Arctic“