I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

by Baek Se-hee

I’ve always thought that art is about moving hearts and minds.

The contradictory state of longing for intimacy but also wanting to keep others at arm’s length is called the hedgehog’s dilemma.

Because someone has to say, ‘It was so much fun yesterday!’ for me to think it really was a fun time, otherwise I wouldn’t think so.

But the moment you think to yourself, Well, this is the way I am, and what can you do about it, you’ll feel much freer.

‘What matters isn’t what people say but what you like and find joy in. I hope you focus less on how you look to other people and more on fulfilling your true desires.’

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.

‘Emotions have something like passageways, and if you keep blocking your bad emotions, you end up blocking your good emotions as well.’

I want to own my own life. To do everything I want to do, so I don’t live a life of regret.

What I need to practise from now on is to stop trapping myself in some formula of, ‘This is what I have to be doing,’ and to simply acknowledge the fact that I am an independent individual.

If I’m sad today I’ll be happy tomorrow, and if I’m happy today I’ll be sad tomorrow – that’s fine. As long as I keep loving myself.

And because I’m not grounded in confidence, I keep thinking every word spoken to me is an attack, and I see things as right or wrong despite the many other different ways of seeing them.

Take control and responsibility for your actions instead of caring so much about what other people think.

‘To tell the truth, no one was looking down on me except myself.’

‘The important thing here isn’t whether you are being loved, it’s how you will accept the love that comes your way.’

nowadays I’m just wallowing in the thought of, What on earth am I doing here?

I don’t know how to love or be loved properly, and that’s what pains me.

It’s my first time doing this, there’s no way to do it perfectly, anyway. I have to remind myself of that and think of ways to do it better next time. I also have to comfort myself, tell myself it’s all right;

Through turning my gaze, I learn that the low points of life can be filled with countless realisations.

Because the moment I realise I should do better comes just when the person I should do better with is no longer by my side.

It’s no use to hold on to the empty shell of a love that’s past, to try to win back a heart that will never return, or to let your regrets eat you up from the inside . . .

I often look for books that are like medicine, that fit my situation and my thoughts, and I read them over and over again until the pages are tattered, underlining everything, and still the book will have something to give me. Books never tire of me. And in time they present a solution, quietly waiting until I am fully healed. That’s one of the nicest things about books.

When we lose our sense of hope in our own lives, we can also lose the many touchstones in our lives. We don’t want to do anything, be part of anything, or want to be with anyone. All of our desire for relationships disappears, and we become totally isolated.

It’s obvious now that I think about it. Fencing myself inside myself, not meeting anyone, not sharing anyone, that’s just making a castle out of ice. My focus was on the coldness of others, and that left my life with no warmth at all.