Natalie Feng

Do not use a mortal brain to ponder the troubles of immortality.

When you look at a cicada, its eyes can only see close distances, and its ears are deaf. How pitiful. But the cicada looks at you and thinks, unable to hear ultrasonic waves and unable to fly, how unfortunate you are.

When you look at a swallow, you lament that it nests under human eaves, a thin bamboo pole could kill it, fragile and insignificant. But the swallow looks at you and thinks, with a fat and clumsy body unable to soar, where is the freedom in your life?

When you look at a cat or a dog, their life is confined to a room or courtyard, their days spent playing as humans’ companions. Yet when the cat and dog look at you, they see people endlessly toiling, eating food that barely satisfies, and living simply as another tool of work.

The meaning of life is determined by the depth of time.

To the cicada that lives only for three summer months, autumn is the end of life, and winter is the hell of bitter cold. Living is a form of relentless pain.

To the mayfly that lives for a single day, the morning dew is as vast as the oceans, and its life rises and falls with the sun. Not knowing dusk, it feels it has seen everything in the world.

A five-year-old child cries because they missed a cartoon by 30 minutes. To them, that is what gives life meaning.

A seventeen-year-old girl weeps because she missed a love that lasted for 30 days. To her, that is what gives life meaning.

A thirty-year-old middle-aged man is sorrowful because he lost 30 days of work. To him, that is what gives life meaning.

A seventy-year-old elderly person mourns because they stumbled through 30 years of glory. To them, that is what gives life meaning.

An eighty-year-old person sits in deep melancholy, watching clouds roll across the sky, listening to flowers bloom and fall in the courtyard, and singing ancient songs. To them, savoring time in life is already meaningful.

We think life is cruel because the problem we consider comes from a mortal brain.

We cannot comprehend the meaning of billions of years of life — what to think, prove, attempt, or where to find purpose. What can one gain from it, and what evokes gratitude and joy?

Only when life is stretched to this dimension might we gradually find new pleasures and emotions.

Perhaps we would wait for a signal sent out from a galaxy and for it to return after 4.24 light-years — the time of the universe.

Perhaps we would watch evolution in a drop of life soup, spending 3.5 billion years observing what new life emerges — the time of life.

Perhaps we would witness a fleeting moment, seeing things arise from nothing, from order to collapse, spanning 14 billion years — the time of the cosmos.

In the end, a mortal brain cannot comprehend the joy of immortality.