One thing in life that is constant is change.

Stand or sit still for a second. Even though you may think you are perfectly still, you are not. You are stuck to a planet rotating at 1,000 miles per hour about its axis. The planet itself is flying round the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. The solar system in which we sit rotates around the centre of the galaxy at about half a million miles per hour.

Multiplying that little lot together, you are moving at something in the order of 2 million miles per hour. Good job there aren't any Gatso speed cameras in the milky way, since that's pretty fast.

Everything is moving. Nothing is still. Nothing sits still for a second. Everything changes, constantly.

If you look at the end of the video I posted the other day, you'll see the Wee Yin sat on the petrol tank of Queen Madge II.



That look on her face is excitement. Or is it? Look again. It could be fear. Come to think of it, it could be both.

The physical sensation of fear, and the physical sensation of excitement is exactly the same. That stomach-clenching butterfly feeling where your heart races a little and your breathing goes up. You become more alert. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up a little. You become focused (perhaps even on the wrong thing in the case of a truck coming round a corner).

So I'm tramming up this twisty B-road today on the way to work. Sunny day, lots of grip, blue sky. Turned a tight bend into a bit where the road narrows and there, coming round the corner towards me, is a huge articulated lorry.

Brakes on, look for the escape. The lorry is as wide as the road - no chance of getting past him - and I'm carrying a bit too much speed to stop in time. The back wheel locks and starts skidding.

By now, the stomach is clenching, and the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up a little. This is fear. The front bumper of that truck doesnt't look like collision with it could be described by any word meaning "pleasant".

Then I see it. The escape. The lorry is as wide as the road - taking up all the space - but there's also off-road. The tarmac turns into grit and gravel and mud at the side of the road. there is no kerb - this is a B-road.

I aim straight for the gravely part - pebbles and stuff - and release the back wheel, even giving it a bit of gas. I see the truck driver looking at me from his cab - I am actually speeding up rather than trying to slow down - and he quite obviously thinks that he has just rounded the corner to be faced with some crazed suicide biker.

I hit the gravel and plough up the embankment a little. I am pretty much level with the truck's front bumper. A little gas, a little roost, and I just coast along the grassy embankment part the truck.

The point is, that the physical sensation was exactly the same throughout. The physical feeling of fear at hitting the truck, and the physical feeling of the excitement of roosting through the gravel onto the embankment. Same feeling, different perception.

So nothing stands still, and change is constant. That feeling you have - that fear of change. Is it really fear? Or is it, just possibly, excitement at the untold prospects that lay before you?

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