First of all, before getting into the body of this post, I would just like to say: I see you. Yes you. You know who you are. The Russian. See, I can look up a lot of interesting stats about this blog. I can look up page views by date, by browser type, by hardware brand, and by country. And I'm well aware that there is somebody from Russia reading my blog somewhat regularly. And this has been going on almost ever since I started this blog. In fact, Russia has the third most page views of any country, after the USA and South Korea, both of which make sense. I have 24 page views from Russia, which doesn't sound like a lot, but then, I only have 10 posts. So that's over 2 page views from Russia for each post. And it's not like this is a widely read blog. So I just want to say, to whoever is reading my blog in Russia, I know you're there. And if your some sort of comie spy....well that's fucking cool. I'm honored to have your attention. And if I have some friend in Russia that I didn't know about...well why the fuck didn't you tell me you were in Russia?! Send me some Borscht! I love that shit...
Alright, back to your regularly scheduled nonsense.
Lately I've been feeling more and more connected to Korea, attached to this life, comfortable, and less attached to the life I had back home. It's been a good feeling. I'm honestly consistently happier in this life than I've ever been before. And there doesn't seem to be any particular reason for it. Except, I suppose, that there's nothing on the horizon, nothing to anticipate, just the daily routine. And that's comfortable, and this is a comfortable place to have a routine. Or perhaps it's just the simple fact that this life remains a change of pace, a change of scenery, from the 25 years I spent in Cleveland, and that the simple freshness of it all still gives me joy even after 6 months here. Granted it is a magnificent city, with one of the best metro systems in the world, a myriad of wonderful parks, an endless number of things to do and places to see, and lots of cheap seafood.
Still I've become aware lately that lots of Koreans feel very much about living here the way I felt about living in Cleveland: "Yea, so?". And that fascinates me. I mean, it makes sense I suppose. But I've talked to so many Koreans who feel depressed, and stuck in a rut, and like they aren't doing anything interesting, and I just want to scream at them, "You live in Seoul! Do you have any idea how interesting that is?!". I want to take them to the endless cornfields of Ohio and ask them, "Does this look more interesting to you?". But the truth I'm realizing is that they probably would find it interesting. Because it's different from what they know. After all, that's what it means to be stuck in a rut, to be surrounded by what you know and to never experience anything new or different. I suppose then that there's something endemic to the modern psychology of the human race that spurs us to desire a variety of experiences. A Korean who moves to Cleveland might be just as happy and interested as I am to have moved from Cleveland to Seoul. Though the city of Seoul may be objectively superior in a number of definable ways, the subjective nature of experience is more affected by the variance between the two than anything else. I wonder why that is. It does seem as if for the majority of human history our survival depended on being in familiar territory, thus this must be a fairly recent development in our psyche. But I digress, that is an investigation that I am not prepared to entertain at this moment.
Still, despite how happy I've been recently, today something is different for some reason. I feel weird about everything. I feel very much in a kind of limbo. I don't feel connected today. I suppose I feel very aware of the temporary nature of this phase of my life. 6 months in I have a handful of friends, but nothing on the level of what I had back home. I have plenty of people to spend time with, but overall I feel more independent here, more on my own. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think it's part of the reason I came, to develop that kind of independence and self sufficiency. But today the sense is that the whole purpose of being here is almost entirely self improvement, and that I'm not advancing my social life in any permanent or long term way. That is to say, I've made many alterations to my way of life that I think are very positive. I use public transportation almost exclusively (I don't have a car after all). I dry my cloths by hanging them (no cloths drier). I cook more frequently. I write more. I draw more. I feel productive and fulfilled. So I feel like I'm becoming a more complete individual, more like the person I want to be. But it's amazing how many of my long term desires are social. I want to build a community. I want to participate in and contribute to something larger than myself. More than just wanting a girlfriend, I want a domestic partner. These are goals that I can't fulfill here, that have to be on hold indefinitely until I return.
Simultaneously, however, I'm feeling less connected to back home as well. I'm so established in my life here, that I don't really feel any attachment to the life I had before. For the first time, I'm not excited when I imagine coming back home, but a little scared. There's people who I'm very connected to back home. That hasn't really changed. But when I come back home I won't have a job, or a place to live. I won't have a routine. I won't have this city, that, as mentioned, is a truly fabulous city. I have people back home and a community back home, but I don't have a life there. I have a life here, but I don't have a community or a future. Thus, at this moment I don't feel anchored or attached to anything. It's kind of a lonely feeling. And it's not a sharp, intense, or terrible loneliness, like I felt when I first got here. But it is deep and pervasive, though subtle.
In the past week I've heard from a lot of people back home about how proud and impressed they are with me for doing this. I have to admit, I have mixed feelings every time I hear that. Certainly it's nice to feel impressive, and to know that the people you care about are proud of you. But the longer I'm here, the longer it really just doesn't feel like all that big of a deal. Additionally, while back in the states I had this self impression of being an adventurous person, my experiences since coming here have forced me to reevaluate that position. I've met people that humble me in that sense. I've met people that have traveled all over the world. I've met people that have lived for more than a year in 4 or 5 different countries. For all I've seen and experienced, I've met people who have seen and experienced so much as to make me feel truly naive and uneducated about the world. So I'm left feeling, thinking, "What of this year in Korea? It's nothing. It's insignificant. It's a mere taste of the world, and nothing resembling a full portion." If I leave at the end of this year and come back to the states, and live there for the rest of my life, I won't be worldly, I won't have significant perspective, I won't have achieved any great understanding. I'll have a very limited perspective of a single culture out of hundreds. And what does that amount to really?
I realize that that paragraph sounds very negative. And I want to emphasize that my feelings aren't nearly as negative as such writing might indicate. The negativity is meant only to bring a degree of balance to the overwhelming positivity that I am receiving from all of you. I also acknowledge that what would be required in order to achieve such worldliness and such vast perspective would involve sacrificing the deep bonds that I have to the people who I am close to back home. Truly, I have come to realize how very fortunate I am to have bonds as strong as I do. While perhaps being incompatible with the epitome of worldliness, I realize that such bonds are something that those who are so worldly do not have, and in fact by definition are incapable of having. It is my hope that my limited perspective will be of some value to my community when I finally rejoin it.
And on that note, to those who consider themselves a part of my community, please comment on this post. It matters not to me whether I receive the comment here on the blog itself or on facebook. I receive so much feedback verbally, on the phone, often second hand, weeks or months after the post. But I can not convey how uplifting it is to receive written comments from you. Even if you are reading a post a month after I have made it, and you leave a message on my facebook wall about it, please know that such a gesture will uplift my spirits the moment it is received. My love for you and my deep connection to you has become more a part of my identity now than it ever has been before. Indeed, it has proven to be the strongest and most enduring thing within me.
-Mongoose
Alright, back to your regularly scheduled nonsense.
Lately I've been feeling more and more connected to Korea, attached to this life, comfortable, and less attached to the life I had back home. It's been a good feeling. I'm honestly consistently happier in this life than I've ever been before. And there doesn't seem to be any particular reason for it. Except, I suppose, that there's nothing on the horizon, nothing to anticipate, just the daily routine. And that's comfortable, and this is a comfortable place to have a routine. Or perhaps it's just the simple fact that this life remains a change of pace, a change of scenery, from the 25 years I spent in Cleveland, and that the simple freshness of it all still gives me joy even after 6 months here. Granted it is a magnificent city, with one of the best metro systems in the world, a myriad of wonderful parks, an endless number of things to do and places to see, and lots of cheap seafood.
Still I've become aware lately that lots of Koreans feel very much about living here the way I felt about living in Cleveland: "Yea, so?". And that fascinates me. I mean, it makes sense I suppose. But I've talked to so many Koreans who feel depressed, and stuck in a rut, and like they aren't doing anything interesting, and I just want to scream at them, "You live in Seoul! Do you have any idea how interesting that is?!". I want to take them to the endless cornfields of Ohio and ask them, "Does this look more interesting to you?". But the truth I'm realizing is that they probably would find it interesting. Because it's different from what they know. After all, that's what it means to be stuck in a rut, to be surrounded by what you know and to never experience anything new or different. I suppose then that there's something endemic to the modern psychology of the human race that spurs us to desire a variety of experiences. A Korean who moves to Cleveland might be just as happy and interested as I am to have moved from Cleveland to Seoul. Though the city of Seoul may be objectively superior in a number of definable ways, the subjective nature of experience is more affected by the variance between the two than anything else. I wonder why that is. It does seem as if for the majority of human history our survival depended on being in familiar territory, thus this must be a fairly recent development in our psyche. But I digress, that is an investigation that I am not prepared to entertain at this moment.
Still, despite how happy I've been recently, today something is different for some reason. I feel weird about everything. I feel very much in a kind of limbo. I don't feel connected today. I suppose I feel very aware of the temporary nature of this phase of my life. 6 months in I have a handful of friends, but nothing on the level of what I had back home. I have plenty of people to spend time with, but overall I feel more independent here, more on my own. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think it's part of the reason I came, to develop that kind of independence and self sufficiency. But today the sense is that the whole purpose of being here is almost entirely self improvement, and that I'm not advancing my social life in any permanent or long term way. That is to say, I've made many alterations to my way of life that I think are very positive. I use public transportation almost exclusively (I don't have a car after all). I dry my cloths by hanging them (no cloths drier). I cook more frequently. I write more. I draw more. I feel productive and fulfilled. So I feel like I'm becoming a more complete individual, more like the person I want to be. But it's amazing how many of my long term desires are social. I want to build a community. I want to participate in and contribute to something larger than myself. More than just wanting a girlfriend, I want a domestic partner. These are goals that I can't fulfill here, that have to be on hold indefinitely until I return.
Simultaneously, however, I'm feeling less connected to back home as well. I'm so established in my life here, that I don't really feel any attachment to the life I had before. For the first time, I'm not excited when I imagine coming back home, but a little scared. There's people who I'm very connected to back home. That hasn't really changed. But when I come back home I won't have a job, or a place to live. I won't have a routine. I won't have this city, that, as mentioned, is a truly fabulous city. I have people back home and a community back home, but I don't have a life there. I have a life here, but I don't have a community or a future. Thus, at this moment I don't feel anchored or attached to anything. It's kind of a lonely feeling. And it's not a sharp, intense, or terrible loneliness, like I felt when I first got here. But it is deep and pervasive, though subtle.
In the past week I've heard from a lot of people back home about how proud and impressed they are with me for doing this. I have to admit, I have mixed feelings every time I hear that. Certainly it's nice to feel impressive, and to know that the people you care about are proud of you. But the longer I'm here, the longer it really just doesn't feel like all that big of a deal. Additionally, while back in the states I had this self impression of being an adventurous person, my experiences since coming here have forced me to reevaluate that position. I've met people that humble me in that sense. I've met people that have traveled all over the world. I've met people that have lived for more than a year in 4 or 5 different countries. For all I've seen and experienced, I've met people who have seen and experienced so much as to make me feel truly naive and uneducated about the world. So I'm left feeling, thinking, "What of this year in Korea? It's nothing. It's insignificant. It's a mere taste of the world, and nothing resembling a full portion." If I leave at the end of this year and come back to the states, and live there for the rest of my life, I won't be worldly, I won't have significant perspective, I won't have achieved any great understanding. I'll have a very limited perspective of a single culture out of hundreds. And what does that amount to really?
I realize that that paragraph sounds very negative. And I want to emphasize that my feelings aren't nearly as negative as such writing might indicate. The negativity is meant only to bring a degree of balance to the overwhelming positivity that I am receiving from all of you. I also acknowledge that what would be required in order to achieve such worldliness and such vast perspective would involve sacrificing the deep bonds that I have to the people who I am close to back home. Truly, I have come to realize how very fortunate I am to have bonds as strong as I do. While perhaps being incompatible with the epitome of worldliness, I realize that such bonds are something that those who are so worldly do not have, and in fact by definition are incapable of having. It is my hope that my limited perspective will be of some value to my community when I finally rejoin it.
And on that note, to those who consider themselves a part of my community, please comment on this post. It matters not to me whether I receive the comment here on the blog itself or on facebook. I receive so much feedback verbally, on the phone, often second hand, weeks or months after the post. But I can not convey how uplifting it is to receive written comments from you. Even if you are reading a post a month after I have made it, and you leave a message on my facebook wall about it, please know that such a gesture will uplift my spirits the moment it is received. My love for you and my deep connection to you has become more a part of my identity now than it ever has been before. Indeed, it has proven to be the strongest and most enduring thing within me.
-Mongoose
Hi Darko!
ReplyDelete(Your Russian friend may in fact be a proxy, but who knows, maybe someone over there really IS reading your blog. Kinda cool to think about.)
You're still getting a more worldly experience than the vast majority of Americans. As much as I hate to say it, for most of us, going out of the country usually is just a vacation to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, or maybe even Europe. To spend a year somewhere, getting immersed in the culture and lifestyle of another country is a great achievement for those that will likely never experience it. Sure there's always people who've gone to more countries and seen more things, but just enjoy the experiences you're gaining and go from there. :)
It's always great to see you've made another post and you've gotten through whatever adventure was on your plate. Or even just hearing about some of the new and unusual sights and sounds of Seoul. It's a window into the other side of the world through a friend's eyes.
Keep it up, and keep enjoying life.
Tim
(P.S. I'm kind of curious as to what kind of reaction there was over there to the whole north korean leadership thing.)
Becoming "worldly" in this day and age, with the internet, facebook, blogs, etc. does not have to be the disconnect and loneliness that it was in the past. We are all still here, we all love you, and yes, we are proud of you. You took a great big step into the unknown, and showed a level of courage that many of us know we don't personally have. For some of us, you are living our dream and allowing us to live it vicariously through you--and we are thankful.
ReplyDeleteWe are also proud of you because we are seeing you grow and become a man, not the boy you were when you left. And you are becoming a pretty cool man.
Please don't feel that you have to come home in order to connect with your past--your past is here, watching over your shoulder, standing by your side. Live your dreams. Travel. Find jobs in strange and different places. Write. Create Art. Just be. And continue to let us be with you.
And when you do come home, your experiences there will shape and color the rest of your life. You will have knowledge and wisdom to share that cannot be gained in any other way. You will bring a dimention to the rest of your life, and to everyone that you touch, that will benefit them as it has benefited you.
Olwyn
Thank you, both of you, those are wonderful and encouraging things to hear. Olwyn, your comment nearly made me cry. It was very touching.
ReplyDeleteTim, you may find it interesting to hear that in regards to the whole North Korea thing, for the most part South Koreans don't really care. They've paid about as much attention to it as we in in USA pay when Canada elects a new Prime Minister. The reaction has been something along the lines of, "Hmmm. Kay."
Russian dude might be my fault...EvE is an international game and we talk about family and link stuff all the time...so who knows.
ReplyDeleteOne comment about "Worldly" people...its funny but I was talking to a woman the other day about how many countries she has visited (and I thought it was cool) and when I mentioned that I really havent been out of the country, she was horrified!
Than I started telling her about all the places within the States I have been and her jaw dropped.
So some of that stuff can be pretty subjective.
Anyway, its always cool to see what is going through your mind bro! Now, when ya get back you have a neice to see, which is kinda cool ;)
Love ya David
Thanks for the perspective bro, that's definitely something to think about. And I was just thinking about Tavi the other day. Her first birthday is in, like, a week isn't it? That's so cool. Can't wait to meet her.
ReplyDeleteLove ya too bro.