There was a time, when I considered myself younger than I do now, when I wrote the following. I used to believe that I could become anything. A strangely half-glimmering hope. A hope that was so bright it somehow felt cliché. I was still too young to say that the hope had faded, but its color had become too dull to say that it still shone the same way. When I see a child who is only about waist-high to me, I hesitate to casually tell them, “You can do anything, and you can be

Sometimes, it feels strange and precious that I am me. How, of all things, by what coincidence, did I come to be born as myself? It sends a chill down my spine to think that I will live this one-and-only life solely from my own perspective.

Not long ago, I had a dream in which I was protecting someone. While they trembled under the blanket, I bought the things they needed and fought off the children who were bothering them. That someone was a person I knew, but in the dream, they seemed somehow younger than me, while at the same time seeming older than me. When I woke up, I thought that the strength to protect someone might not come from being strong. Perhaps what is needed is not strength, but a hand that can g

Life these days feels like tea that has cooled for a few minutes—just the right temperature. It isn’t exactly thrilling, yet neither is it deeply unsatisfying. In truth, on days like this, I find myself with nothing particular to write. The days I feel compelled to write are usually the ones where my emotions are on a rollercoaster—days marked by intense anger, despair, or unhappiness. Conversely, on joyful days, I tend to steer clear of the written word. Perhaps it is becaus

First time in a while, I cooked myself dinner. Tonight’s menu was an omelet. Usually, I would crack two eggs and pour in a good amount of heavy cream, but since I was out of cream—and quite hungry—I opted for three eggs and a splash of milk instead. I chopped up onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes, sautéed them in olive oil, and used them as a topping for the eggs. We were out of basil, but there was some arugula meant for salads, so I generously piled it on and sprinkled some ch

Lately, I find myself letting time drift by rather than trying to fill it with something. While the phrase "letting time drift" often seems to imply doing so meaninglessly, perhaps it is possible to let time pass meaningfully. Although there are still people suffering from hunger, many today struggle with the discomfort of overindulgence. Whether it is work, meals, or relationships, we seem to run into trouble because we try to cram everything in rather than paring things dow

I’d been seeing so many of my friends using digital cameras that I started thinking I wanted to buy one too. Then I remembered the Olympus E-P1 that had been sitting abandoned in my closet, so I took it out for the first time in a while. For some reason, I hadn’t been able to fall asleep the night before, but as I stared intently at the battery charging in front of me, thinking, “I should hurry up and sleep so I can wake up tomorrow morning and turn the camera on,” I graduall

I woke up from a nap to the sound of children splashing in the pool right outside. With a good sunshine and a good sky, the water is teeming with people. The fact that the sound of laughter doesn't bother me must be a sign of just how at ease I feel.

Today, I sat behind the wheel for the first time. Afraid to even start the engine, endless questions rolled down my mouth, nervously. What does this button do? Where should I put my feet? By the time the driver's seat—which had initially felt dizzyingly unfamiliar—began to feel comfortable, I had run out of questions. The moment to shift the gear into D arrived. Do you trust me? Do you trust these hands and feet driving your car? I wanted to ask, but voicing that question wou

For a long time, writing was something done out of necessity—something I simply had to do. Yet, realizing I lacked exceptional talent and couldn't realistically make a living from it, I decided to shift my perspective slightly. It didn't matter if my carefully crafted sentences failed to produce a spark of brilliance, if a poem didn't elevate my worth, or if my daily journal entries went unread by anyone. For a single reader, all of that is more than enough. I do not edit wor

This year held so many things. Legally, I became an adult, but I did not become a grown-up. I still feel like a child, still repeat the same mistakes, still live while preserving moments of embarrassment like specimens. What has changed is that I shifted, little by little, through it all. I became more open-hearted, and at the same time, in some ways, more closed. Perhaps that is inevitable, since the heart has only so many doors. As I opened doors to new people, there were m

Sleep is strange. I say so because there is so much potential during the time of sleep--as an alternative to laying down, closing eyes,...

I can hardly remember the past. Even the small, fleeting moments of realization have faded into a hazy blur. Chasing sole stimulation...

* Good writing has rhythm in it, a rhythm that reads like a song. I read them aloud. It sounds like music humming from the white pages....

One day, I think that what everyone needs is an emotion dumpster—where they can dump all their emotions of darker shade into. Sadness....

When I press the leftmost rectangular key on my keyboard, it switches from 한 to A. Or A to 한, and vice versa. I feel that it was always...

A frog in a well. Here, the frog is a metaphorical expression for those who live in their own world, a narrow space, without realizing...

I feel like giving up on everything. Maybe not practically everything, but a few things that I’ve been indulging in and holding onto....

My personality is just like clay these days. The flexibility is insane. I don’t know what I can become, what I will become, or if there...