A Honeymoon Five Years Late
On the way to the Goseong IRONMAN 70.3 in June 2026.
A book that was helpful because principles I had held as personal guidelines throughout my life were laid out explicitly in writing. Strangely, the author Jang Kang-myoung and I had remarkably similar worldviews. The idea of susin-jega-chiguk-pyeonghwa (修身齊家治國平天下) that I always talk about — same. The belief that a person must become self-reliant and strong — same. Trusting in the value of diligence over love — same.
Passages That Left a Strong Impression
My own feelings come first. I want to live joyfully. I have no desire to waste three years of my life on such pointless matters. The opportunity cost alone is enormous. If I stop worrying about those things and focus solely on myself — cultivating a healthy, vibrant emotional state — I could write at least five full-length novels in those three years.
I can only love my wife and my parents when I am in a healthy, vibrant emotional state. Loving others takes energy too.
A person becomes an adult the moment they stake their own life on a gamble. Those who cannot do so remain pets forever. … Life is dangerous. The expectation of a “safe life” is a delusion. You should wear a seatbelt. But refusing to drive out of fear and deciding to walk everywhere is foolishness. You can be struck and killed by a car while walking too.
A Korean-style wedding was, in our view, the very embodiment of such pretension and unnecessary expenditure. To my mind, the typical Korean wedding is remarkably similar to Pepero Day. It has grown ever more lavish over time, decoration has come to overwhelm substance, and it has now become a massive industry. … Consumers all know it is pretentious and foolish, yet they fall for the marketing anyway. … And after enduring that bizarre ceremony, they band together to seek out the next victims. Asking things like, “How big is your place? What did you bring for the trousseau? How much did you get for the décor allowance?”
Grandparents established the standard of “prestigious universities versus toilet-bucket universities,” and fathers and mothers added to it the categories of “in Seoul,” “metro area,” and “regional university.” The grandchildren then construct elaborate details like “SKY, Sungkyunkwan-Hanyang, Chung-Kyung-Oewha, Konkuk-Dongguk-Hongik, Kukmin-Soongsil-Sejong-Dankook, Kwangwoon-Myongji-Sangmyung” and so on.
When it comes to issues like academic credentials or marriage, why can’t people say “screw that” to the absurdity of it all? I think it’s probably because, when matters of identity are concerned, they are mentally fragile. Having no firm belief in the value of their own lives, they seek their identity in social status.
I don’t think external circumstances are entirely responsible for determining how a person can live a “good life.” But with the exception of a few saints and exceptional individuals, most people are hopelessly pushed around by the material world.
In The Art of Travel, it says that travel is ultimately subjective. No matter how wonderful the sights or how delicious the food, if you’re in a bad mood, the trip was bad.
Truly new experiences are rare. … By the time I turned thirty, almost none were left. Certain new worlds I had intentionally avoided. Things like having a child, or starting a business.
“That’s not love. You’re just being diligent.” I never thought of myself as someone with a great capacity for love. I figured that what I could love amounted to, at most, myself and one other person, a few potted plants, and maybe one or two animals. … What growing children need is not their parents’ love so much as their parents’ diligence.
Because in the city I had never waited like this to watch a sunset slowly unfold. There had always been something to do in the evenings. I had felt that the sun sets every day, that there was no particular reason to wait for it, that a sunset was something you could watch when you had nothing better to do.
You know that line in Anna Karenina about happy families and unhappy ones? Something like, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”? It means that becoming happy requires many conditions to be met simultaneously. Fall short of even one of them, and you’re unhappy.