Did I mention it? I'm a Korean living in South Korea. Korea has four distinct seasons:Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. But these days, it seems like we go straight from winter to summer.
It's a day that makes me long for spring like it used to be.
The smell of spring, spring clothes, spring breeze, flowers that announce spring, spring sunshine. I don't know when I last felt these things.
I had the winter heater on until yesterday, but now that summer has come, I have to turn on the air conditioner.
Photo by Christine Bae
But this week has been really spring-like. When the weather is nice, my mood is good and I find myself exclaiming, ‘What a beautiful world!’
I thought how nice it would be if I could live in this kind of weather all year long, but as expected, it's drizzling this morning. The weather in Korea is becoming very unpredictable. Yesterday was winter, today is summer. Spring rain again.
Photo by Christine Bae
As the weather is so changeable, my heart is also as changeable as boiling water. Last time, I told you that I was going to post on Substack. Those of you who have read it carefully will probably remember this. I will post the odd numbers of the series on Substack and the even numbers on my website.
But I quickly changed my mind. I feel more comfortable posting on my own blog.
So today I automatically came here and wrote first.
Ah! They say that a resolution lasts for three days, but what is this? This is the weakness of a human who cannot even keep a resolution for one day!
I thought about why I changed my mind like this. What do you think?
First, it's the fear of commitment.
Second, it is the psychology of wanting to be famous but not wanting to be famous.
Now that I think about it, both are similar. In other words, it is a mentality where you want to achieve something, but when you actually stand in front of it, fear takes over.
Photo by Christine Bae
I think this is what fear of commitment is like: I have to pull back the curtain on the stage to show my face.
But the moment the curtain opens and I'm about to be exposed in front of that large audience fear strikes me first. I want to hide behind the stage before the play even starts because I can't control my emotions. I want to run away somewhere. Why do people try to hide behind fear when faced with something they have longed for so much?I'm a newbie writer on Substack, so no one will notice, so I have no reason to be shy.
But then again, I start to bring up the reasons why I'm inferior to them. They're completely American, they speak English perfectly, and they make no grammar mistakes at all.
I'm not American, I'm not good at English, and I feel like my writing will sound like really weird English, which makes me feel intimidated.
I think the reason why most people want to accomplish something but can't is because they've had the same experience I've had. They think they really want it, but underneath it all, there's a stronger emotion of fear.
Photo by Christine Bae
The second is the paradox of obscurity: you say you don't want to be anonymous, but you actually enjoy being anonymous, because that's the way you've always been, and that's the way you've always lived.
Similarly, I'm a minor among minors, so there's no way I'm going to be famous in a place where all the famous journalists are gathered, but if I were to become famous, there's another part of me that doesn't want to be famous.
The first time I felt this way was when I fell in love with a Korean indie band.
They've become so famous now that everyone knows them, but back when they were only known to a small circle of people, they were really raw.
band Jannabi
O.K. I'll just reveal their name. The band Jannabi.
I have an allergic taste for things that are too popular, so I don't really like singers, songs, or products that are too popular. For example, bags with a big louisvuitton logo on them. They're too vested.
I think that if everyone has to agree on a single beauty, it's not the real thing. I think that ‘beautiful’ is a unique taste that someone's sensitive antennae have picked up on, and that it should have rarity.
The reason I came to like the singer was because the vocalist's personal taste was similar to mine, and the song was not from typical Korean pop music. It had the fresh scent of a minor band that had not yet succeeded and the energy of a group that was still growing.
Band Jannabi's performance at Grand Mint Festival 2019
For example, the singer's sunglasses were 99% the same design as my sunglasses, which I found wandering down a back alley on one of my trips to Barcelona.
They weren't a famous brand and they weren't expensive. They only cost USD$50, but they were very luxurious. They were the work of an emerging designer based in Barcelona, so they had a fresh, raw feel to them.
I wanted these people to do well, but on the other hand, I also thought that they shouldn't become too famous. If they became too famous, they would become vested interests, and if they became vested interests, their unique, raw image would disappear.
What makes something attractive isn't perfection without any flaws, but also potential that is lacking but has the potential to grow.
But if I don't let them grow just to keep my taste, that would be a sin too. In order to continue making music, they need the support from their fans, and if they don't have money, they won't be able to make the next album.
'I wish they were a singer that only I knew' is probably my greed. If there's something good, it's right to let the world know about it, right? Because good things are meant to be shared.
I know that I should shut up and continue once I decided to do something. But why do I need so many reasons instead of just doing it? Am I writing this long article to explain why I haven't written on Substack?
Despite that, I like myself for being so human.
How human is this? This imperfection. Making resolutions and breaking them, making promises and not keeping them, and starting over again.
I think it's because we're all human beings, we go back and forth between perfection and imperfection, inner conflict, veil VS unveil. We think we live to achieve something, but in reality, we are on a journey to confirm our human side.
By the end of such a journey, you will discover a changed ‘me’, from raw to mature, from a cave where you were hiding to the outside world, from isolation to connection.
It's as if, by the time the unknown band has completed the music inside of them, they've emerged from the underground and moved into a brand new building.
It's as if the hidden songs that fans have discovered are being brought back to light after a time when computers were filled with songs that they couldn't even sing.
We don't know when that time will be, we just do what's given today.
This week, it took me a whole week to finish this article. I feel like I'm juggling between painting and writing, but I'll try to move forward little by little, even if it's slow.
The important thing is that I wiggled today.
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