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Do you suffer from ungratefulness? Go and sit at a hospital for an hour and be cured!
There is nothing like sitting at a hospital reception to resolve your first-world-problem-type complaints. I was sitting in one this morning. I felt so humble and grateful for all that I do have despite sometimes feeling like I need ‘more’. There were a lot of people there, most of them middle age plus or elderly.…
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If you love them,
When she spoke about what happened, I felt obliged to listen though it breaks my heart every time. That is the burden that I have to bear. My animal brain would rather avoid pain at all costs but to listen to her story and feel its pain was my duty and a way to unburden…
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A little bit of you
Do you ever miss a wonderful person you have never known? Then you remember seeing them time to time behind different faces. Sometimes your heart jolts of excitement, at other times it aches. Either way you are in awe. But even sunlight costs you. Anything brilliant and amazing has a price.
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How about a compliment?
Last year on a wet and cold winter evening at a wine bar, a waitress told me I was “very pretty”. Putting aside whether I am indeed “very pretty” under objective beauty standards, and the fact that it seems now to be a taboo to comment on one’s appearances even if in a positive light,…
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자기전에 잠깐
읽고 싶은 책의 출간을 기다리는 즐거움. 여름을 기대하는 마음. 이런 사소 한 것들이 삶을 만드는 것 같다. 내 자신의 기대와 기다림들을 보고 ‘내가 살아있구나, 그래도 살고있구나’ 라고 느낀다. 어떻게보면 기적이다. 이 짧고 고난 가득한 인생에서 무언가를 기대하고 바랄 수 있는건 인간의 초자연적인 힘인 것 같기도 하다. 참 아이러니 하다. 항상 두가지의 것이 공존 한다. 삶과…
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노랑 접시 안녕
내가 좋아하던 노란색 접시가 깨졌다. 정확히 말하면 전자레인지에 돌리는 와중에 ‘쩍!’ 하더니 미세하지만 꽤 큰 금이 생긴 것이다. 무척 아쉬워 하며 일단은 그릇에 담긴 음식을 먹었다. ‘아, 왜 깨졌지? 아쉽다. 참 좋아하는 그릇이었는데.. 다시 붙여서 쓸 수 있을까? 이제까지 문제 없었는데 왜 갑자기 깨진거지?’ 하면서, 우습지만 나름 심각하게 사색을 해보았다. 그러다가 조금 더 생각을 해보니…
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A rainy Tuesday afternoon
I carry my late grandad’s umbrella. It’s not the best umbrella and it’s a bit worn out, but I still like it. I don’t think he used it much—perhaps not even at all. He was a farmer, you see, in rural South Korea. A man of charisma and authority, not the kind to use an…
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Writing makes me …
When I finish writing, it all makes sense.
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The book-smart girl that is actually foolish
The girl who says all the right things like a textbook. The poor girl doesn’t know that her eyes flash doubt. Little does she know, her audience is already sickeningly familiar with the rhetoric she dogmatically regurgitates. Some of her audiences are in fact, more acquainted with that ‘textbook’ than herself. But of course, because …
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A troubled elite
From last year’s diary. A description of somebody I went on a date with. A troubled elite. Undertone of melancholy and depression. A troubled, restless mind. Longing for acceptance. Loneliness. Intelligence. Perhaps ‘brilliance’. People-pleasing and flirtatious. Too smart to be happy.
Got any book recommendations?
Ilamnyuh 