I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

by Baek Se-hee

‘If you want to be happy, you mustn’t fear the following truths but confront them head-on: one, that we are always unhappy, and that our sadness, suffering and fear have good reasons for existing. Two, that there is no real way to separate these feelings completely from ourselves.’

I wonder about others like me, who seem totally fine on the outside but are rotting on the inside, where the rot is this vague state of being not-fine and not-devastated at the same time.

Your mood is extremely important. It determines how you interpret the random events of life.

I like to be by myself a lot. But only under one condition: I must have someone who loves me. Someone must want to know how I am every day for me to be happy alone.

Even when I was with you, I was a shadow. A dark, dark thing, stuck to your side, imitating your every move.

A friend was once telling me about her dating life, and after I’d heard her out, I said, ‘Hey, this is aquarium management!’

To me, sadness is the path of least resistance, the most familiar and close-at-hand emotion I have. A habit that has encrusted itself onto my everyday.

Translator’s note: In Korea, ‘aquarium management’ refers to the dating practice of stringing along several potential partners.

you should enjoy the freedom of your own thoughts.

Your self-esteem determines how you feel about the sincerity of others.

Are you trying to quit altogether? Me: No. I like drinking too much.

Over a period of thirty minutes I saw seven smokers, and they were all middle-aged men. Hate them. Hate them. Hate them.

This is a record of a very ordinary, incomplete person who meets another very ordinary, incomplete person, the latter of whom happens to be a therapist.

I hope you will listen to a certain overlooked and different voice within you. Because the human heart, even when it wants to die, quite often wants at the same time to eat some tteokbokki, too.

When life becomes something one just lives through, when the demands of survival take up all of our time and effort, leaving no strength for any other demands, and when time rushes by drying up or rotting whatever we have had to neglect, expecting someone to carry on being the same is truly too much of a burden.

A moment where I happen to look special and you happen to look special – just a coincidence. But these beautiful coincidences are also responsible for most of our life’s relationships.