I’ve Never Been Good

with good-byes. I find myself, now, at yet another crossroads where I must begin again on another road. Words that mean the world to me:

This spring, I am going to set off on the road again.
I have been staying here about as long as I am meant to,
so now I think it is time to find a new place to reside.
When ascetics stay in one place for a long time,
they begin to languish, stuck in a mire of sloth and inertia.
I want to embark on a new path, like an eternal beginner,
clumsily starting all over again from the beginning.

--Beop Jeong

While it is nearly Autumn, I find that it is time for me to be somewhere else.

It has been an absolutely incredible year. The places I’ve gone, the things I’ve done, the people I’ve met and all the other things “I” have been granted the opportunity to experience seems to somehow pale in comparison with the knowledge that I DID these things.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that for the last year, what I am most proud of, is the fact that I attempted as completely as possible to embody the idea of genuine action. Human beings are about the only creatures on the planet that can make conscious decisions without being entirely hampered with those… instincts. We have language. That, in itself, allows for jobs and occupations. We have money. For all of its metaphorical reality, it allows us leisure time—which is why Aristotle says that the truly good life involves having at least some money. The issue that, I believe, most people run into is the ontological use of this time: what am I to do with it?

The most common medication for free time is television. I don’t like television. Full stop. You see, it’s not that I don’t like it because of its “mindless entertainment” value. It’s not even that it can be used as a kind of hegemonic indoctrination tool—although this aspect is quite terrifying. It is precisely that what we have worked so hard for, and by that I mean what the pinnacle of humanity has been striving for (i.e. leisure time that sets us outside the realm of animalism) has come to nothing more than staring at a box of moving pictures.

This all smacks of time. Time can be a blessing or a curse. When we are at our leisure, time is a blessing. When we are at our work, it is a curse. Time is precious. I’m through asking why time is or who invented (although I would say that “I” make time). I’m through with all of that. That fact of the matter is that time IS, and our only real task is to ensure that this gift is used appropriately.

So, when I see that humanity is slowly trending toward sedentary mindless submission to hegemony, it makes me feel good that while people are watching their favorite shows in their dark houses illuminated only by the TV screen, I have been out amongst the world, wondering at the way the light manages to make it through the tops of the trees, throwing myself in giant puddles of mud, wandering through clouds at the top of mountains, listening to Korea reggae bands at an abandoned ski resort, visiting forty meter tall Buddhas carved on the side of a mountain, eating pajeon and drinking mokoley, bathing in one of the largest bath houses in the world, eating that raw fish that was so disgusting when I was a child, watching sunrises and sunsets thirty-six hours apart, memorizing books, writing books, and, generally, just doing.

It is ironic that I, as a writer, put very little stock in people’s words—and this applies probably most rigidly to my own words. I find that action will always eclipse what people say. For example, for my last weekend in Korea, I decided to go somewhere I had never been before. There’s a city called Taean, a not-too-large city on the west coast of Korea. South of Taean, there’s a city called Anmyeon-do, which is essentially a hole in the ground. South of Anmyeon-do, in the middle of I don’t even know where is where I was. My friends said they were coming with me. I left earlier than them because I was meeting the girl I’ve been seeing, and they were going to come later.

They said they were coming. Getting to where I was from where they were was a huge mission. It took me almost five hours, and they were leaving almost five hours after I did. They came. They did what they said they were going to do. I celebrated my last weekend in Korea with the people that actually cared enough to do something real with me. I’ve been to so many going away parties that it actually makes me sick. Oh, they’re always fun affairs to attend, but they’re also usually always too superficial for my taste. What I had on the beach, eating barbecued shellfish with the people I cared about most in Korea meant more to me than almost anything. But that’s always been my style I suppose. I would trade depth for superficiality any day of the week.

What am I saying good-bye, too? I find myself not knowing the answer to this question. I know I’m saying good-bye to my current place, and the people as I have known them will change immensely by the time I get back. I’m saying good-bye to the comfort of the known and once again traveling into the breach of the unknown. Where things are up in the air and I am at a loss for understanding, somehow feels like the place most appropriate for my existence.

I don’t know. I will maintain that until I pass out of this realm. Who’s to say about life? Who’s to say about time? I will certainly not be the one so arrogant as to proclaim that can know. Knowing now the things than can happen in one year, in one day, in one hour, and in one minute of an existence genuinely lived moves us ever closer to the complete acceptance of ignorance… in a good way.

So, good-bye to whatever it is that I need to say good-bye to, and hello to the beginning of what’s next. Ah, conclusions, they’re always so inconclusive, huh?