#1522 Permanence

Permanence is often something sought after rather than a reality.

Humans crave permanence – a steady income, a permanent home, a permanent companion. We ink permanence onto our skin, carve our lovers names into padlocks, throw away keys and make vows using words like forever.

But very few realities can meet our expectations of permanence. Time, fire, and bolt cutters can slice right through the fantasy and make us look our temporality square in the eyes.

This week on All the Best – things that we thought would last forever and the ways they are inked on – or erased.

Love locks have become familiar features on iconic bridges worldwide. The trend of snapping your eternal love on the structures has become too much for them to handle. Cities all over the globe are using bolt cutters, nets, and saws to unchain the locks of thousands – but if the lock isn’t eternal, what happens to the love?

Produced by Made Stuchbery

Anything that involves permanence needs trust to work. Relationships, contracts, pinky promises and the big one – tattoos. The art of scoring ink into another person’s skin is one based on trust as much as it is on permanence. Jess Hamilton got tattooed, and interviewed artist MISO while she was poking away.

Produced by Jess Hamilton

Sound design by Briana Cowlishaw

Growing up, you might have wished school was a little less permanent. There’s something about turning up at the same place at the same time wearing the same thing every day that makes the place seem timeless.

But schools are institutions and buildings. Time, environment, people – they all contribute to the place changing.

For students at Caringbah Highschool, their school turned into an evolving reminder that nothing is permanent – not buildings, institutions, or adolescence.

Produced by Tom Joyner