Sunset
My Daughter’s Birthday 2008.11.5
It was my daughter's birthday. We invited her friends to have dinner at the Ala Moana Shopping Center. As we were waiting for our table near the California pizza kitchen, the sunset cast a fiery red hue across the sky.
I hadn't seen such a panoramic view in a long time. An image more beautiful than anything imaginable, it's truly a work of Nature. Fascinated, I took a snapshot of the beautiful sky with the camera I had in my hand for the birthday.
The beauty of the sunset lasts only for a moment. Within 10 minutes, the color fades to purple, and it transforms into gray clouds, and a night sky. With such vastness, it seems as if it could go on for a while, but that’s not the way it is. I can't take in how many changes there are, and in the short time I look away, it already starts to disappear.
In times like this, I think of how life resembles a sunset, in the way it is transient. The time we call "the present", while having absolute value and confidence, follows a time axis, flooded with memories – I’m astonished how life passes in a moment. The sky, and life, changes enormously in the split second we avert our eyes.
It may be a cliché thing to say, but "the present" is beautiful. When I see the sunset, I realize that the present is important. Everything depends on how you look at it. I think the flow of time is not certain, but depends on the spirit and heart.. When you slice things into smaller pieces (like increasing a sampling rate), it relaxes the speed, and you can have more information.
(This image is not altered)
Nature is heading towards chaos according to the law of entropy. When two different colors of paint are put in water together, they begin with two layers, but mix together over time. But man and Beast defy that. Order is produced in the world. So then, the “body” itself has been made by order, and cells take things in and out, opposing natural mechanisms.
So I think a little bit as I watch the sunset. I take in, and am receptive to more things, and build up that energy in my heart. Because presence of life defies natural law, that power probably helps “order.” Or it may have an important role in keeping a balance between “chaos” and “order.”