On Impermanence

As I reached my sixteenth or seventeenth hour of fasting today, a moment of perfect clarity ravaged my mind like an atomic bomb would an enemy target. It hit my soul just as I crossed one of the many bridges hanging over the O River here in Osaka.

My daughter was quietly sitting in my arms. Suddenly, her pale fingers extended in the freezing air seeking to capture the rays of the winter sun. Simultaneously, a dozen mew gulls flew us by. For but an instant, we found ourselves surrounded by a magical whirlwind made of sun and white feathers.

My starved mind drank up this brief scene of pure beauty as avidly as a suicidal man would down poison. I also, feeling the warmth of my child’s cheek near mine, reflected on the narcissi flowers I had arranged a few days prior (I teach Ikebana professionally).

I realized how they were slowly decaying in the vase I had forced them in. Yet, I felt no sadness at all. My daughter then giggled slightly as the mew gulls scattered in every direction. We, too, were slowly rotting away in this late cold afternoon, I thought with a joyful heart.

Impermanence truly is the honey of this world! And let me reassure every everlasting-life-seeking transhumanistic freak out there: you, too, will taste its sweetness in the end.