Seoul Searching

[myseouldiscovery]

The Sharp and the Dull

They always say that Melbourne has four seasons in one day. It's a whole thing; you can go out in a scarf and coat in the morning, but come back in the evening in a t-shirt. You see people in the city carrying umbrellas, wearing beanies but also wearing shorts and sandals.

In some ways, it's even worse now. It's not just the extremes, it's the small gradients in between. It's not enough that it can go between hot and cold, it's suddenly a gale force wind that has the heat of a sun inside it. Or the noon sun beating down on the shade of a tree, where underneath it feels like standing on a block of ice.

At the moment, this is what my pain feels like. Hot and cold. Sharp and Dull.

If it's Dull, it's fine; I can deal with Dull. It's just a low-level ache that's always there, almost as though it is my baseline now. I can still be moved when it's Dull - moved to tears, but moved to laugh, moved to smile. I am pushed along with the gentle current that is the everyday, but the Dull is my vessel.

But the Sharp. The Sharp is hard. The Sharp is a splinter under my finger, a spasm out of nowhere that twists and contorts and leaves tears in my eyes. I can barely breathe sometimes when the pain is Sharp. I can't protect myself from the Sharp and I can't ignore it. The Sharp makes me want to hide but simultaneously makes me want to reach out and plead for someone to help me.

This last week was bad. I was all Sharp and edges, feeling both there and not there. It has been awful. But now it is Dull again and I can continue.

[myseouldiscovery]

What are you doing now?

A question I dread. No matter who asks - strangers, relatives, even my best friends who I would absolutely tell anything to.

At the moment, especially, "what are you doing now?" seems to touch a raw nerve that is sitting on the surface and exposed to the elements. How can I answer this without sounding like a loser? I lost my job, spent a month catatonic. Tried to hide from my friends in shame. People around me are constantly moving, but I'm stuck, immobile, the eye of the perpetual storm that surrounds me.

I decided, on an impulse really, to take up studying again (I'm actually doing multiple studies at once - it's probably got something to do with feeling like people might think I'm lazy, so I'm overcompensating. But I'm not examining that too closely now, I can't bear it). But at the moment one of the things I'm doing is a single subject about Korean society and politics through a university, and I can't even begin to describe how completely locked in and engaged I feel after months of feeling nothing.

It's like my studying is gently allowing the skin to close over the empty wound. I have something to talk about that's positive. I'm even thinking of going back and maybe doing a second Bachelor of Arts, this time in Korean studies. That's how much I am committed to what I'm doing.

But it's not a career. It's not something that will lead to a career. And that seems to be all anyone cares about when they ask you.

"What are you doing now?"

Surviving, ma'am. I am trying survival for once.

[myseouldiscovery]

On Having An Interest

Yes, I would love to hear all about the latest thing you are loving

I have never been a person who hides the things that she is interested in.

If it captivates me in some way, if it soothes an empty, yearning part of my soul somehow, I will embrace it wholly and gratefully.

I can remember being little and having television shows that I loved, and having to own as many tie-ins as my parents would allow. I had a Care Bear, a She-Ra castle, and a Beverly Hills 90210 t-shirt. This hasn’t changed as I have gotten older, even when my tastes have. It isn’t enough that I love something: I have to wear that love pinned on my bag, splashed on my chest, on the lockscreen of my phone. It’s not purely out of a subconscious need to connect, a siren call for other likeminded individuals. It genuinely makes me happy to see these little trinkets swinging from my bag as I climb into my car, or to look over when I’m feeling low or anxious and my phone screen wakes up and I am suddenly reminded I am capable of warm feelings.

I don’t exactly know why this has always been so. In today’s therapy-focused parlance, it could be deemed as hyperfixation. But really, absent any other behaviours warranting formal diagnosis, I believe it to simply be a matter of my capacity to enjoy things being as deep as a well, and the fear of not having an interest being greater than any perceived cringe I invoke.

When I started liking Kpop, Kdramas, Kbeauty and all things Korean during COVID, it was probably expected by everyone (including myself, let’s be honest) that this would be one of the many things I became fascinated with, learn all about, spend a lot of money on, and then gradually wake up from. After a little while I would rouse, like I’ve fallen asleep in the sun somewhere and, groggy and disoriented and quite a bit poorer, I would wonder what had happened. Even in the ensuing years I have veered off in search of other diversions (I’m looking at you, Bridgerton) but for some reason I am always drawn back into this strange journey into Korean culture.

My love of Korea and Korean culture is something I’m going to try to disseminate slowly over time, if not for anyone else but just for myself to try to work out why this in particular has been something I have been so reluctant to part from, something I have refused to give up on, even when the rest of my life is slowly unravelling.

But for the moment, I just wanted to explain a bit about why I get so engrossed in things, and why I feel like rather than a source of shame I should see it as a badge that should be worn alongside all of my other badges. It means I am open to connection, open to learning, open to becoming part of something bigger than myself. It means I am able to appreciate art and culture. At the time of writing this, Kpop Demon Hunters has swept the globe, becoming the most-watched Netflix film of all time (236 million views). Being in amongst the swelling wave with everyone else who loves it has been a source of joy in an otherwise precarious point in history - sharing memes, learning lyrics, taking in fan art, all of this helps to form a connection and exchange with others at a point in time where that communication can seem fraught and tenuous at best.

I’ve always been lucky in that I’ve always been able to surround myself with people who also have interests that grip them: live music, traveling, television, books, collecting, dancing, crochet, podcasts, puzzles, role playing games, fandom itself. I love nothing more than to watch people talk about something they are interested in. Their eyes light up and the words spill out of them like they are a can of soda that has been shaken before it is finally opened. Giving people permission and space to indulge in what they love is an act of love in itself. After all, I feel like the one thing almost everyone wants in this life is to be listened to.