War And Peace
And The Secret Garden

BY adminchiron
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHIRON DUONG
March 17, 2026

War and Peace and the Little Garden

I am living in a turbulent time. I am reminded of the stories my grandmother told me. She recounted wartime, the scenes of displacement, and how she and my father fled to a train. She nearly lost him on the train, and it was thanks to some people who carried him along with her. There were so many different scenes of human life. These scenes were both heroic and tragic, both cruel and loving.

After all the chaos of humanity, have we overlooked any mistakes? Why is a forest so stunted? Is there such a thing as fate?

If I were to write a story, I would imitate Luis Sepúlveda’s *The Old Man Who Read Love Stories*. I would write about a man in his 30s, tending a small garden on his city balcony, repurposed from water bottles in his planters, growing a few vegetables, and waiting for them to bloom with yellow flowers. But the chaotic city sweeps him into one predicament after another, turning his peaceful moments in his small, stunted garden into precious luxuries. Will the world leave him alone to tend his garden? Or will it always be filled with fighting, competition, noise, schemes, and chaotic madness? Oh, the man misses his small, stunted garden so much he cries, and they mock his moments of vulnerability. At the end of the story, from the ruins, a miracle appears…

I’ve been living four lives simultaneously so far:
– 1 human life with social media
– 1 human life with other humans
– 1 human life with nature and animals on this planet
– 1 life with the universe

Even if later we have humans as robots, animals as robots, and plants as robots, it will still belong to the mundane material world.

My only understanding is the purest: the sun, the moon, the stars, the forests, the animals, the oceans… Let’s recharge with natural energy, love, and wisdom to prepare for these crazy scenarios of humanity.

“This World”