(EN/KR)
Dinosaur
Alien
Cemetery
Flower
Programing
Light
Pattern
Ghost
Universe
Paradise
Dogma
Purgatory
Glitch
As a child, dinosaurs were the first beings to instill in me the concept of death. Before bed, my mother would often read me books about dinosaurs. I do not remember the details, but the story must have been about how a meteor collided with Earth, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
I do not even remember if I actually liked dinosaurs back then, but I clearly remember how I reacted. Upon hearing that dinosaurs died, I immediately equated that with the idea that my mother, too, would one day die. “Then will you die too, Mom?” I asked, bursting into tears. My mother held me close and reassured me, “Everyone will die someday, but I'll be by your side for a long time.” That moment has stayed with me ever since.
Much like Bing Bong, the imaginary friend from Pixar’s Inside Out, who continued to cheer for Riley from the depths of her subconscious even after she grew up, I too had something lingering in my mind. Not the dinosaur in a biological or paleontological sense, but something else—some kind of green, reptilian presence. Somewhere deep within my consciousness, it had been preserving the memory of that first conversation I had with my mother about death.
At some point, I played ARK: Survival Evolved quite seriously. It is a game set in an ambiguous timeline—neither clearly prehistoric nor futuristic—where the player starts as a primitive human, hunting, taming dinosaurs, and gradually developing technology to survive.
The first dinosaur I tamed was a dark green Pteranodon. Wherever I went, I could ride it to travel quickly. It carried my heavy loads, and when I fell into deep water and flailed helplessly, it would anxiously try to save me. Sometimes, when I had to enter places where the Pteranodon could not follow, I would leave it in a safe spot and rush through my task, worried about what might happen to it in my absence.
For a long time, I coexisted with the Pteranodon and other dinosaurs, gathering resources and building my own little world. Then one day, while I was logged out, a skilled Chinese player raided my base. Everything I had built was reduced to rubble, and all my dinosaurs were slaughtered.
As I wandered the empty world with a hollow feeling, I came across a Pteranodon identical to mine. It was nothing more than a respawned creature, generated by the game’s algorithm. Its interactions with me had been reset; its memories erased. It was the same in appearance but fundamentally a different being. And yet, rather than feeling empty, I found myself thinking, I hope you live happily in this life. Not long after, I stopped playing the game entirely.
There are moments when a smooth, green-skinned being—something I had long believed to be irrelevant to me—resurfaces from the depths of my subconscious. It emerges through certain triggers, acting as a medium for lost memories and emotions.
If I am experiencing love in the present, then perhaps, in the distant future, I will encounter this love again in a transcendent way. And when that moment comes, something else will serve as its medium. Right now, I cannot recognize it, but somewhere nearby, it lingers like a ghost. And one day, through a seemingly accidental encounter, I will meet that friend.
Since childhood, I have been drawn to aliens, UFOs, and the paranormal. These subjects belong to the realm of fiction, yet they evoke a strangely familiar sensation. Sometimes they feel terrifying, other times intriguing. When people talk about seeing ghosts, I wonder—are they truly glimpsing the spirits of the dead, or are they witnessing something else entirely, something beyond our understanding? Perhaps even ghosts could be a form of extraterrestrial life.
The discussion of extraterrestrial existence has long been a subject of science, philosophy, and popular culture. We search for exoplanets through telescopes, analyze signals, and attempt to determine whether we are alone in the universe. Yet, despite all these efforts, we have not seen them— or perhaps we have, but we lack the means to recognize them.
The idea of extraterrestrial life stirs both fear and curiosity. If they possess a civilization far more advanced than ours, how should we react? Conversely, if they are mere microorganisms, do they still qualify as alien life? More importantly, how much can we truly perceive about the world beyond what is immediately visible?
Carl Sagan believed that extraterrestrial civilizations, if they exist, are likely to be peaceful, and that we should reach out to them. Stephen Hawking, on the other hand, warned that seeking contact with alien civilizations might place us in danger. But beyond the question of extraterrestrial existence, this debate fundamentally reflects how we perceive "the other."
Throughout history, humanity has experienced both fear and fascination toward the unknown. The explorers who first discovered new lands, the sailors who ventured beyond familiar shores, and the astronauts reaching into space all confronted the same dual emotions. This reaction extends to the supernatural—the things we do not understand.
People who claim to have seen ghosts or had inexplicable experiences may simply be victims of illusions or hallucinations. But perhaps these encounters mirror our fascination with aliens—an attempt by our senses to grasp something beyond our comprehension, something that exists on a different plane of reality.
Visiting Parque del Recuerdo Lurín, a cemetery in Peru...
In March 2023, during my first visit to Peru, I was traveling along the highway when a striking landscape caught my attention. In the distance, I began to see an expansive plain filled with vibrant flowers. The sight was so unusual that I felt an overwhelming urge to see it up close, but since I was traveling with others, I couldn't stop. It wasn’t just the abundance of flowers that intrigued me—what made it even more astonishing was that this area belonged to Lima’s desert region, an environment too harsh for flowers to thrive naturally.
In July 2023, I was fortunate enough to visit Peru again. This time, I was determined to go to the place I had missed before. I made time for it and finally arrived. As I walked inside, I was met with an endless stretch of lush green lawns. In front of each grave, bouquets were arranged in a uniform manner, as if reflecting humanity’s desire to regulate not just nature but even death itself. In a space where life continues to grow, the way death was memorialized seemed to follow strict order and discipline.
The unexpected revelation, however, was that most of the flowers I had assumed to be real were actually plastic. The artificial and geometrically structured landscape, which stood in stark contrast to nature, carried an irony that made it a compelling subject for artistic exploration. This experience led me to an intriguing question: How do humans spatially construct life and death? Here, nature had been standardized, geometrically arranged, and transformed into a new kind of landscape to commemorate those who had passed.
At the center of the cemetery stood a statue of Jesus. While honoring a divine presence, the statue also physically occupied an intermediary position between nature and humanity. The palm trees planted throughout the site appeared to be organic elements of nature, yet they were carefully spaced at fixed intervals. This seemed to illustrate humanity’s attempt to convert the inherent irregularity of nature into mathematical order. After all, isn’t mathematics the very tool we use to uncover the mysteries of the universe?
A cemetery is, by nature, a space dedicated to death. Yet, within it, human efforts to preserve and memorialize leave behind traces of life. Despite its meticulously structured layout and rigid arrangement, nature continues to persist, symbolizing permanence in its own way. Grass continues to grow, flowers wither, and the wind blows, introducing disorder into an otherwise controlled space. Within this human-constructed environment, nature asserts its autonomy, creating a constant tension between permanence and transience, order and irregularity.
Undoubtedly, flowers have already been extensively analyzed, romanticized, and poetically depicted by botanists, writers, and artists. Even so, I want to write down my own thoughts about flowers. Perhaps, as with other subjects I have reflected on, what I am about to say has long been recorded in textbooks—outdated, obvious truths that have been discussed for centuries.
And yet, I have felt it firsthand. While cycling for several kilometers, I saw flowers neatly planted along the roadside—the same ones I had seen there last year. Despite the humid heat exceeding 30 degrees, the scent of the Han River mixed with the cool air trapped within the surrounding greenery, brushing past me as I rode by. Those flowers had surely been planted and maintained by someone. Given their location along the Han River bike path, they were likely not the result of personal effort but rather maintained with public funds, sustained by taxes... In that case, perhaps I, too, have a small stake in this flowerbed. So, I might as well enjoy it a little more freely.
Flowers hold many meanings. Think about it—when did we start giving flowers to those we love, using them as a symbol of celebration, and assigning them meanings? Imagine a person in ancient times contemplating how to express attraction to someone they admired. After much thought, he/she might have looked at the flowers spread across a field and exclaimed, “Ah! This is it!” Carefully gathering them one by one, he/she would have created the first bouquet. And surely, it must have been successful. The act of expressing love with a bouquet of flowers must have quickly gained popularity, leading many others to adopt the practice of confirming love through flowers. This is merely a story I imagined, yet the tradition of giving flower bouquets has endured from ancient times to the present, proving its deep and lasting significance.
The act of planting flowers, nurturing them, and harvesting them, or seeking out wildflowers, picking them one by one, and gathering them into a bouquet—all of these are enough to represent sincerity. One might even question, Is expressing sincerity truly such a laborious task...?
I touched a flower bud—so fragile,
yet brimming with life.
Plump, full,
moist, firm,
and still—snap, break.