The cherry blossom season is fast approaching.
There is nothing better than having a drink underneath the fully bloomed cherry blossom trees, talking about how the air is still a bit chilly.
I also love seeing these cherry blossoms gently floating to the ground in the soft spring breeze.
It marks the end of this year’s blossoms, and the beginning of next year’s.
Watching the falling blossoms makes me wonder why life has a beginning and end…
“Church of the Good Shepherd” in Lake Tekapo, New Zealand
Immortality and eternal life… Since ancient times, this has been a dream which Egyptian pharaohs, the first emperor of China, and even us modern men have pursued.
Imagine one day your friend’s body became immortal.
The friend would surely jump with joy, thinking how lucky he is.
He’s going to live eternally for tens of thousands of years, after all.
He doesn’t have to worry that one day his life will end.
You might look at him with envy.
But could someone with an eternal life live happily ever after, for tens and thousands of years, or even millions of years…?
If you are never going to die, are you even living?
Osamu Tezuka wrote these words in his “Hi no Tori (Phoenix)” series.
“Why are the sky and earth so beautiful? That’s right, it is because everything here is…alive!”
Why does life have a beginning and end…? This is my answer.
(To be continued)
by Kazuhiko Kato