Humans and Nature

I just finished the book ‘The Samurai’s Garden’ by Gail Tsukiyama. It is an amazing book that kept me company many evenings and days throughout the past two weeks. Towards the end it had many correlations to how I am feeling about the end of my service approaching in the next four months.

There is a passage I wanted to share:

‘ “Isn’t it interesting, Stephen-san,” he said, “how sometimes you must cut away something in order to make it grow back stronger?” “It may seem lonely and barren at first, only to flower again in the spring.” … “We aren’t so different, human beings and plants. We are all part of one nature and from each other we learn how to live.”

… “I won’t say we human beings still don’t have much to learn. Sometimes we love and hate without thought. We expect too much from one another, and often we are wrong. Take that flower,” he said, pointing to the crepe myrtle. “it has a short life span, but you know just what to expect of it. The leaves are turning yellow-orange, so you know human beings have much longer lives. And that makes for many more complications. But in the end, Stephen-san, you can only look back, hoping everything happens in your life is for a purpose…. If it is important, it will stay with you.” ‘