General Electric Corporation presently is airing a TV commercial saying: “Initial ideas come into this world messy, unkempt and fragile” (paraphrased). Yes fragile, but not quite messy.

Initial ideas may appear to be messy, that is because they are nascent. It takes much work to refine an uncut diamond; an initial idea, until it is made beautiful. Thomas Edison: “An invention is 10 percent inspiration, 90 percent perspiration.” He makes no mention of fragile or messy.

Because of GE’s use of the word “messy,” in my opinion, GE is alluding to certain ongoing social transitions that are occurring and have occurred in America. And not, on the face of it, spending its money to teach about ideas. Social transitions must meet the “test of time,” meaning much effort expended to see its beauty.

If social transitions do not meet this test they are only “attempts,” and in the first place, failed “attempts” never have a discoverable beauty. Having no beauty does not mean ugly. It does mean, however, not too far from ugly. Ugly is a gaping rip to social order, upheaval, which has great cost that no one should have to pay. Yet we are indeed experiencing social disorder and paying for it with all kinds of disturbances, including natural disasters. The final payment is coming due.

In the material world time always tells; that not all ideas are good. Man, too often it seems, forgets this fact.