All Stories begin with ...
Once upon a time ...
It's never easy to start writing a story, but stories are always there.
I grew up cradled in the worlds of Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe,
where every river knew a secret, and every shadow sang a name.
The people, the places, the twists of fate,
taught me that a story is not just told, it breathes.
Later, in the quiet halls of science, I learned a new language for stories.
No longer spun from dreams, but woven from logic, from precision.
A fragment of stone, a shell of an ancient creature,
and from them, histories unfolded, silent yet immense.
Elegant, meticulous, beautiful.
But their heart was cool, untouched by sorrow or joy,
only the seamless lacework of reason remained.
Yet the world whispers beyond our tidy sentences.
In the trembling fire of a 4.6-billion-year-old zircon,
in the wild, green breath of the fields,
in the first call of a morning bird,
and in the secret symphony of fungi growing beneath our feet.
Nature's stories are not only ancient; they are alive.
They are fierce, they are tender, they are full of mysteries we cannot name.
And we, we are not the storytellers from afar.
We are written into the very text.
We grow, we breathe, we leap.
The story I want to tell is simple, and endless:
the story of our belonging,
the story of our return,
the story of how we are nature —
and nature is us.
我从小读着马克吐温、爱伦坡的故事长大，总是会被故事中的人物和情节所打动； 后来做了科研，讲故事变成了逻辑完整的代名词。我会从一块石头、一群介形虫 的壳里，揭开了几万年前的历史。优雅，严谨，神秘，令人沉迷， 但故事的主角不是石头也不是介形虫，只是一篇没有感情却逻辑严丝合缝的文字。
世间万物与地球的连接，都会产生自己的故事。从46亿年前锆石中的放射性元素， 到如今身边的花花草草，从清晨的鸟吟虫鸣，到泥土下肉眼看不见却时时刻刻在发生 的微生物生长。自然与万物的故事，有逻辑，有感情，有许许多多人类至今依然无 法理解的奥秘。
而我们与自然的连接，也应远不止于揭开其漫长的历史。我们与那些石头、花鸟一样， 是万物中的一物，是系统中的一环，我们一同生长于天地间，拥抱，呼吸，跳跃。
而我要讲的故事，正是这样的故事。
