11.2022
After many goodbyes, the season of withering winds has arrived. The sunlight is becoming more and more delicate, and as it invites me to recall the days used to be, I feel a sense of nostalgia without denying it. I understand that this is a contradiction since here is where I was born and raised. However, I think that it does not matter how many hometowns we have. I no longer believe that it is a particularly rare case for a soul to have a place to return to that is different from the place of birth. The experience of having spent time in several places is now being accelerated by the winds of the times.
From the day I firmly promised myself that I would never again desire anything tangible, an unseen force began to take effect in return. The challenges presented before me were sometimes so great that I felt dizzy. The sheer power of it all is so great that even now, sometimes my body and mind cannot keep up. Still, it’s much better than the days when I would be bored out of my mind with the easy ones. I have always loved difficult problems; if they weren’t complicated, they wouldn’t even be worth the challenge. …I didn’t feel that way from the beginning, but I guess that feeling came to me as I kept telling myself that.
It has been a long time since I began observing the wavering ego, but I am also thinking at the same time about the place of a sense of belonging. The threat posed by language goes without saying, but the idiosyncrasies of culture that accompany it cannot be overlooked. I think I have the answer to what makes me who I am, but it slips through the cracks of my fingers. Maybe I don’t need to know the answer until the end of my life. And yet, I am still struggling today in the process of loving myself just the way I am.
When was the last time I realized that I was far from the “majority”? I have no intention of calling myself a heretic, but I still feel uncomfortable being treated as an oddity, even now. However, those who have deviated from the norm have the privilege of freedom in exchange for solitude. If I don’t have a place to stay, I can create one on my own. Even if it is at the bottom of a dark, dark sea where no light can reach. Or even on the clouds so high in the sky that not even birds fly overhead.
10.2022
The deepening autumn does not hide the signs of winter already. Everything I touch is imbued with a mysterious serenity, which is why I love this lonely season. And in such an unclear time of year, but with a clear number, I have turned another year older. Of course, this does not mean that anything has changed dramatically. Rather, I thought that a person of this age must be more complete and mature. And I, like many others, surely felt similarly when I was just coming of age.
Yet it is also true that I see the landscape as differently as I did when I was a child. Even if I am observing the same subject as I did then, I can naturally understand it more minutely now. After understanding the subject, we can even dismiss it lightly or let it go bygone. Even with something as complex and luscious as the mysterious folds of a deep-sea fish, we can discover the reasons behind its charms.
In other words, I think I have somewhat given up. No matter how much experience or how old I get, I am still just an extension of myself. I am sure that I have truly accepted the fact that there is no need for me to become a different person or someone else. There was a time, perhaps, when I mistakenly believed that it was trivial and wasteful to be so in control of my own emotional ups and downs. I have lived me, at least well enough to love even such youthful mistakes in their entirety. And I will continue to live my life as me, even though I am sometimes crushed by my own inadequacies.
I have been seriously puzzled for some time now by the sheer magic of the word “diversity”. If we must always sacrifice someone in order to save someone else, Why does such a system exist? Where is the paradise where everyone can live happily? I am wandering around the three-dimensional world today with a thought that is almost like a dream. The fact is that once I know something, I can never go back to the time before I knew it must also be some kind of magic.
-And yet. What I can do is small but not zero. If I can protect myself properly, I hope I can protect others at the same time. Each method is not enough, it seems to fly away with a sigh. But, I believe that if we gather them together and bind them tightly, they will become so strong that they cannot be easily broken. As an adult raised by loving adults, I know many ways to protect myself. If so, …I am also already a great wizard.
09.2022
Now must be the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. I have finally settled my terrible frustration, but now I feel a sense of loneliness that clings to me no matter what I do. I don’t know whether it is my circumstance or the change of season. It may be both. Anyway, I am free from the dizzying heat. That is enough for now.
But these days, I am fed up with unpredictable situations that keep happening and going in unpredictable directions. I thought I had decided not to resist most things, left it to God, and lived my life as I pleased, but I was naive. The Great Being has not yet stopped playing with stupid human beings.
Even so, I am proud to say that I am able to use my body better than before. So now I have imposed another fetter on myself. Just make a play within a play. Before being made to dance, I must dance myself. To meet everything with a smile that is filled with madness, and eventually turn it into a toy. Hey, see, any situation or environment can only be a playground.
Challenges and hard work come to fruition and finally transform themselves into my own limbs. Having had a few of these precious experiences, I was now lost again. More choices mean the same number of choices and decisions to make. The trouble is, the more I love myself, the more each possibility seems appealing. It’s okay to dither and hesitate, thinking that one looks interesting and that one is too good to pass up. But at the same time, I must not forget that time is finite.
Still, everything seems hopeful everywhere because I realize that this world is surely surrounded by a gentle light. Conflicts and concerns will eventually be connected to meaningful outcomes. That conviction and determination will become a flexible weapon to cut through despair, and at the same time, a shield to protect someone. I believe so.
08.2022
Summer gradually comes to an end. However, thanks to that, my heat-ravaged brain finally started to get back on track. Not wanting to let this opportunity pass me by, I think about my proper place in the world. I am sure that I could go anywhere if I wanted to. And to some extent, I can do anything. That is why I am conflicted about where to go and what to do. This is surely a dilemma that anyone who has attained freedom will find themselves in. Even if those who cannot use their wings are given them, they will only cower. They cannot spread their wings wide and flap their wings.
In the end, my own rule of thumb saves the day. And I already know enough. I know I am not yet ready while still in doubt. I know what I need will come to me when I need it. Even if it sometimes leads to a result that is currently unwanted. Like a well-crafted stage play, all foreshadowing is always dramatically recovered in the end.
There are still moments when I want to close my eyes and cover my ears, even when I know it’s just a distraction. The worst are those moments when I know the higher being’s intention and willfully ignore it. In most cases, causality reverts back to that. Sigh. I am sure that even at my age, I am still unable to come to terms with the season of summer, even though it is a time when I should just stay quiet. I sigh more and more.
Thus, this summer, again, I was unable to choose “to do nothing”. Because of my diffuse concentration, most of the things I started to do ended up with poor results. I am appalled at myself, but perhaps that is part of the fun of it. I hope this foolishness will change its form and become one of my beautiful memories.
07.2022
Once again this year, I am maturely at the mercy of the busy skies. As I take turns eating the down-pouring rain and the blazing sunshine, my foolish human stamina is simply being drained away. Heat induces fatigue. I don’t know if this is the main reason, but my several attempts to escape reality for a short while have all ended in failure. Ever since I became aware of my irresistible fate, I have been in the middle of it, barely able to stand. Perhaps it is time to realize that it is time to give up.
As a result, I am forced, ironically, to face myself again. Even more unconvincingly, I have left a number of major accomplishments against me. It is as if I am the one who is tied to the reins, and I am the one who holds them. But the heat of the ground has melted my consciousness into obscurity as if to prevent my thoughts from going further. Oh well. As usual, I’ll just blame it all on summer.
Today, I am still in the midst of a complex cultural environment, maintaining a precarious equilibrium that seems as if it could fall off at any moment. I was born and raised in a land lacking in experience of “movement,” but I have surely had enough experiences to compensate for this. Therefore, I always find myself standing on the shore of the minority. I am sometimes asked for my opinion on how to get to this side, but to be honest, I don’t know what to do either. I don’t think I need to know. I am sure that there are those who are suited for living as a substandard person and those who are not. The reverse is also true, there is no superiority or inferiority.
I wonder where this lost ego will return to, but it seems that it will be a while before it comes to a conclusion. If so. Even If so. I can wait patiently. With this in mind, I look down at the surface of the water on a whim and throw food at the sparkling fish. Even if something is missing, there is still plenty of time.
06.2022
We all project ourselves onto others. I knew this, but every time I blink, I am reminded of it all. Ideals, passions, hatreds, desires, wishes, jealousies, and pure love. Countless elements are pouring down on me today, changing their expressions like the scenery created by a kaleidoscope. The fragments received by the five senses are, however, the essential ingredients to reconstructing me. At the same time, human beings cannot live without the presence of others. That, too, is an irresistible fact.
With this premise in mind, I bought some new accessories that lifted my spirits. To let the sun, which peeks out from time to time, know of my tiny existence, and to add some color to the coming season when I will become lighter and lighter. The buzz of spring is barely lingering in the air, but summer is not yet in full swing. I am unexpectedly buoyed up, but if it is a little mischief. Surely it’s not so bad sometimes. Above all, the rain will eventually wash it all away.
Almost as if by habit, I am lost in thought today. It is often about days gone by and days yet to come. Nothing… really nothing ever turns out the way I imagine it will. And yet, this foolish soul still wants to search for answers in search of salvation.
As a result, I picked up a book of a kind I don’t usually read, and spent an inordinate amount of time dabbling with it in order to chew it up and sort through its contents. I’m just struggling to find out the reality of what I perceive as some sort of pathology. But what can I do once I have unraveled its true nature? Where are the beginning and the end? My whole body is entangled in uncertainty, and I feel as if I am stuck in the middle of it all again today.
Still, some things are clear. I must fulfill my responsibility to live as an adult. I must continue to supply the light I have gathered with a high degree of purity. I must not let the newly born and spun stories come to an end. Absolutely, no matter what.
05.2022
I am fed up with the days that seem to come and go like waves. Perhaps it is a time when the ambiguity of abstract things becomes even more pronounced. In any case, it was not uncommon for me to just droop my head in front of the enormous amount of things that I had to deal with. The thought passed through my mind that I should just give up on the subject at once. I could not easily accept this not-so-bad suggestion because I was aware that this was an ordeal that had been set before me. And I know that it is connected to my mission.
My steady training has paid off, and I rarely conform to another individual these days, no matter what happens. The indicators for everything are all within me, and I simply follow the light shown to me and the voices I hear. However, please forgive me for a while yet for my escapades into parallel worlds. I am sure that in the near future, even that will no longer be necessary. I know that, so I still want to huddle at this moment.
Looking back, it was at this time of year that the beloved new era arrived. Everything I see is bathed in light, and spring is celebrated in a pale and glamorous way. Overwhelmed by the budding of life, and then fueled by it, I continue to run as usual. Fact is stranger than fiction, as they say. Goals that were once unattainable for me, opponents that I was no match for, now seem small and easy, as if the past had never existed. I still rejoice in the ever-renewing standards of value, in the ever-awakening world.
But, I am still immature. The green smell, as if I had torn off a blade of grass growing on the side of the road and sniffed it as it was, is frustrating, but I am sure it is still there. Because I am so proud of myself, I must keep on doing everything. I must continue to polish what I have obtained without letting it go. At the very least, I must not allow this intuition to become dull. I hope that my intuition will continue to shine through.
04.2022
“How fast,” I involuntarily muttered and looked up at the sky. The late-blooming cherry blossoms were in full bloom before I even noticed that they had begun to bloom. At the same time, I was relieved to feel the nerves of people all over the world, which had been on edge, relaxing little by little. As a past to compare with the vividly expanding present, “last year” is a common indicator. I think back to a year ago, basking in the brilliant spring sunlight. The feeling that everything has changed and the feeling that not a single thing has changed are still mixed up in my mind. However, the fact that I am now able to dissolve in the ambiguous spring temperatures and winds without banishing the contradictions that intersect within me is, when I think about it, a great change. Surely, I could even call it growth.
Recently, I was immersed in some classical literature, and I was in a cold sweat when I encountered an episode that I could not believe was another one’s experience. When facing “something,” I should avoid the act of steering ourselves with a strong will. I think so, but when I connect the dots, I always arrive at the same conclusion, which makes me sigh. And I sometimes think back to a time in the past when I used to entrust my standards of value to a third party, albeit only for a short while. But at some point, I began to set myself up as a rival, and I took care not to look away from it unwaveringly. How much time has passed since then? More than anything else, I was beyond astonished and even terrified by my curiosity, which continued to grow as usual. It is as if I was drinking seawater. I try everything to satisfy my taste buds, but there is no sign of quenching my thirst.
But, if that is the case. One might at this point try to revel in one’s own momentum. There is no limit to the number of times I can make up my mind to do it all over again. It is enough to run, dance, and bewilder like crazy. I am always a slave to my own spirit, and yet, I am a mere toy of God.
03.2022
I took care not to miss the few sunny days and went out a little more often. It is as if I myself am gradually approaching spring. In this way, we foolish people shed the gloomy cold and forget the weight of winter over and over again.
At the same time, two whole years have passed since the unprecedented absurdity that visited everyone equally. While we find ourselves in the middle of a situation that is changing at a dizzying pace, resignation and forgiveness are accelerating even at this moment. It may seem contradictory, but we are still in a situation where one unpredictable thing after another is happening one after another. And yet, the world is surely gradually becoming dominated by gentleness.
There was a time, indeed, when I observed my own beliefs with a skeptical eye. The reason I cannot clearly recall the moment I overcame it is probably because it was not a big transformation, but an accumulation of small changes. I am composed of what I have accumulated. Nothing more, nothing less. That is why that is fine. There is value in the continuation of the past, and the continuation will become the value of the future. I can say that now with pride.
In my not-quite-long life so far, however, I have already experienced countless encounters and partings. This is not a remarkable item for me, as I have always believed that there should always be an appropriate distance between oneself and others. Especially in the country where I was born and raised, there is a certain amount of time when one’s environment changes noticeably. No matter how much we wish for it, no one can change its fate, just as no one can stop a tree from blooming and shedding its leaves. Besides, it always comes suddenly. So I thought I was used to it. I thought I had long since discarded all sentiments.
The reason I had to change my mind was that my position had changed. Looking back, I now realize that until now I had mostly left someone behind in a particular place and seen off by them. However, for some unknown reason, the number of people I see off has increased significantly in recent years. At the same time, this means that new encounters await us, so it is nothing short of pure joy. However, there exists a slight but definite feeling of loneliness in me. The chemical reaction occurs at the end of winter by combining existing senses. It is the moment when I realize that I am the only creature on earth with feelings. Even if I am, I just accept it with a sense of calm.
02.2022
How many times have I been battered by the painful, bitter cold? And how many times have I learned that I love winter in response to the bitter cold, but to the point of being appalled by it? Nevertheless, I cannot stand the coldness of the outside air, and I spend more and more time at home. In proportion to this, the time I spend confronting myself has naturally increased as well. Needless to say, I have already been going nowhere and seeing no one for a while, to the point of feeling faint. Yet, to my surprise, I am sure that I have been waiting for this moment for a long time.
In other words, while immersing myself in solitude, here I am again, experiencing an unbearable separation. I never doubted that loneliness and separation do not coexist, but I never know. The act of forcibly pulling apart and letting go of parts of my body that had become adhered to me was terribly upsetting. However, even though I was so distraught that I lost control of myself, I further realized again to myself that I was always looking at myself from a somewhat bird’s eye view. It is a wide, wide space that I once had too much of and kept struggling with how to fill. I am sure that I can make good use of it now.
The inventory of my memories, which I have been obsessing over for quite some time, is reaching its climax. I have been reminded recently that it is in old records and old histories that new discoveries can be made. But It could be the same if it were about me. Because I can’t help but smile when I see a young girl living single-mindedly on the screen. I can’t believe that I have lived my whole life without knowing about her, who is surrounded by light and exists as love itself. I can’t believe that I have been wearing the answer that she will walk around thinking that she will never find it no matter where she looks for it in the future since she was actually born. It’s so funny and pathetic, but I’m a mean adult, so I’ll keep quiet about it for a while.
I took out a particularly shining memory and looked at it. It was a winter day not so long ago. There I was, a young me, crying alone on the plane, anxious and lonely, with no place to go. And I know now that the sunrise she saw from the window was so beautiful that it turned the world upside down. When I think about it, maybe one of the reasons I love winter is that I can recognize the warmth of warm things.
01.2022
Looking up at the sky during a few clear days, I saw a flock of swans flying by. My spine stiffens at the icy beginning. Blaming everything on the cold, I closed all doors. In this way, I consciously cut myself off from the outside world and thought about some winter used to be like. There must have been a time that I spent next to someone, but now I can hardly remember anything. I am always standing alone in a landscape that remains a vivid memory. Sometimes, I ask myself if I am lonely, just to be sure. The answer is always vague, and in the mirror, she just looks at me as if to say that I left such a feeling long ago and far away.
As a result, I’m one step closer to getting where I want to be with another big exam. I laughed with a sigh. Now she is sure, once again, that a closed winter where she can immerse herself in solitude really has benefits.
I still can’t stop playing with my body, experimenting with it, trying this and that. Human beings, and women, in particular, have many interesting functions. When I look at each of them from a bird’s eye view, I can’t help but feel a sense of mystery.
Using such a body filled with wonder, I play with fate. When a surprising chemical reaction occurs, I am so amused that I find myself shouting out loud with delight. However, when I think about it calmly, I feel that everything was predetermined from the beginning and I am just dancing to the scenario that God wrote for me. It’s so elaborate that I am always just being misled. If It is so. Even if it is so. It might not be a bad idea to live my life as a puppet to be manipulated in a good way. Because I am just a clown.