By Isaiah
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
I’m Isaiah/Heesung, and the first third of my 9–month trip to Seoul, South Korea was vibrant and full of activity: running from Korean classes in the morning, to honing my precision on the archery range in the afternoon, to scaling bouldering walls in the evening kept my life feeling like it was constantly in motion.
I liked staying busy. Staying busy allowed me to see constant progress toward my goals, which I craved: my Korean skills were improving, my shots were cleaner, and my body was stronger. I didn’t take a break, nor did I want to.
Eventually, I was forced to.
In early January, Korean university students began their almost three-month long winter break, ending many of my weekly activities, including various clubs at the nearby university. I advanced to a higher level of Korean, and I began to struggle to stay on top of the hundreds of new vocabulary words we were learning each week. On top of all this, I came down with multiple colds back-to-back, rendering me too weak to continue climbing.
I found myself often lying in bed, rotting at home. Both the illness and the lack of things to do were slowly infecting my body and mind. The progress and growth I had once craved was now out of reach. I had no choice but to look inward: to examine my reason, my will, to keep going.
With my body incapacitated, I let my mind run: I turned to philosophy and theology, and questioned why I was doing the things I was doing. I found solace in my faith, but also in the words of Roman Stoic thinkers. In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself of death: how it comes for everyone, and how he shouldn’t live as if he had an infinite number of days left. Though morbid, this struck a chord with me; I felt that I was letting myself drift, and I was losing the ability to distinguish each day from the last. Through reflecting on death, I realized I wasn’t truly living.
So I began to dwell on the beauty of life. I started to slowly cut out the things from my life that I wouldn’t do if I were to die tomorrow, and began focusing on what truly mattered to me instead of just what was fun. I found peace in the “times in-between”: the calm of the walk from the dorm to lunch, or the stillness of the room between my evening shower and turning out the lights.
Around the start of March, I recovered from the last cold, and the new school year began for Korean university students, restarting the activities I had once kept myself busy with.
But this time, something would be different. I wouldn’t be just shooting a bow or climbing a bouldering wall, hoping to stay busy enough to keep my mind off things. Rather, I’d learn to appreciate the beauty of these things in and of themselves. I would be watching the stars, and letting myself run with them.
I hope life’s beauty encounters you as well this spring.
Cheers!
Isaiah/Heesung
P.S. Here are some photos from my “visa runs” to Japan I had to take to obtain new visas for my time in Korea.
