Are We Here Forever

It was March spring, both Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park were still covered by snow and partially closed.The good news was that there weren’t that many visitors.I rented a pair of snowshoes to start my 2-day snow trek.Beyond General Grant and General Sherman, two major giant sequoia trees to visitors, there were so many unknown giants out there.Some of them were there for 3000 years.Do sequoia have a natural lifespan, an age at which they weaken and die?No one knows.How do they live so long?Adaptation helps them survive.When injured, most big trees heal and keep growing.It looked as if they could exist “forever”…

Since I was a kid, I have long been puzzled by the fact why people have to leave or die.Of course it bothered me less these days…The first Chinese Nobel Prize winner (in Physics), Yang Zhenning, used to deliver a speech to the students at the premier Tsinghua University in China.He defined “forever” - in both physics or philosophy terms, "forever" is probably non-existant, or exist only in a matter of an instant in time.  Things keep growing and changing, at the tiniest unit of time and space in this universe.  They might look the same but in reality they develop into a new state of life at every single moment.  Aren't human beings the same?

I was happy to have captured the peace and beauty of the snow forest, and was grateful the feeling it brought to me somewhat last longer than what it was defined as “forever”...

Sequoia National Park, California USA

March 2008