It’s been about six months (or is it seven, I cannot be sure?) on the small Korean peninsula now. I’m writing this blog on Word right now because my Internet for the first time does not work. One of the immediate things that come to mind while reflecting on my travels and time here is one of most neglected virtues in Western culture, patience. I’m not going to start lamenting the degradation of our society but I’m just going to say that it would’ve be nice if the teachers throughout my life stressed the forgotten value of having patience when things don’t go your way. Frustratingly, my Internet does not work for no apparent reason but through all my trials and tribulations here I’ve developed a sense of ‘let it be’ to borrow lyrics from the terrifically profound Beatles song. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing for a form of carefree passivity like ‘The Dude’ from ‘The Big Lebowski’. In my twenty-four years I’ve finally figured out that to overcome obstacles be they, not having hot water in your apartment, not being able to withdraw money from the ATM, having cockroaches and other insects in your apartment, etc, one needs to recognize that they will not be solved all at once but IN TIME. I probably sound nauseatingly dry and obtuse when I make such a pedestrian insight yet I’m not sure many people truly understand even the most basic maxims in life. Perhaps I don’t understand things like this either? At least I’m aware of the only undeniable truth in life pointed out by Socrates; that the only thing I truly know is that I know nothing and everybody walks around thinking they know so much. I think knowledge has to start from this point and then move forward if you are to go anywhere.
I vividly remember arriving to where I’m currently living six months ago. One of the most frustrating things I can recall was that I did not even know where exactly I was on the map. If I got lost and took a bus to the wrong city or something I really could not tell anyone where I was living. Fortunately or not that never happened and as time went on I deciphered the bus routes, train schedules, and the myriad cultural rubix’s cubes. Perhaps a fitting and rather trite metaphor for my time here and perhaps life in general would be putting together a puzzle (I wonder if they have puzzles here incidentally?). In the beginning all I had were the pieces; maybe a couple by sheer luck happened to be right beside one another but the vast majority of them were scattered every which way on the table. The puzzle (life) I suppose cannot be seen at times. Maybe all you have is one section done and all you can put together are a couple pieces at a time. Being in Korea however, has taught me that it’s okay not to always see the big picture. In time, if you keep plugging away, the picture will slowly emerge and one day you will have forgotten all about how far you’ve come, and there, out of nowhere, there will be this beautiful mosaic. Change happens when no ones watching.
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