Spinning Pins

A time capsule is a buried pin that may accept water despite its maker's efforts. It is a pin designed to end its usefulness on a specific date in the future, when it will be dug up and opened. Until this date, several generations of people must be trusted to hold the knowledge of the pin's location and open date. Therefore this knowledge, if written down, becomes a pin in itself, sitting in a drawer, sometimes talked about.

Or perhaps the capsule is marked with a plate or a vertical stake—either one, of course, also a pin. The capsule’s contents, then the capsule itself, then the knowledge of it, fixed or mobile—these form a layered succession of pins, through which humans attempt to contemplate the passage of time on a scale that exceeds their own lifetimes. In other words, the contemplation itself must be performed by a succession of humans in communication with each other, none of whom can perform it alone but each of whom contributes a part to its whole. The contemplation itself is a pin. The newspaper inside the capsule is too wet to read.