Another Slightly Newer Me

📖 Doesn’t It Not Matter Anyway?_Jang Kiha’s Essays

I like Jang Kiha.

The thought of reading his essay collection someday often stirred in my reading wishlist.

While aimlessly browsing library shelves, I spotted that orange book I’d seen countless times online and recognized instantly.

Jang Kiha, whom I’d imagined and grown fond of through his songs, turned out to be exactly my type of person.

Just recently, Jang Kiha released his first solo album since his band disbanded. Listening to his new song, I felt relieved. He still wraps himself in the colors I imagined.

📝 Thoughts and Sentences I Liked

pg.11

What’s clear, anyway, is that I’ve been overly concerned about things that don’t matter at all, and once I admitted that they truly don’t matter, I felt much more at ease. But, looking closely, there isn’t just one or two such problems in my life. Among the issues I unknowingly turn into worries and wrestle with, quite a few don’t matter at all. It almost seems like everything is that way.

pg.26

Getting drunk is, in the end, just becoming a bit foolish. Nothing more, nothing less. This is the conclusion I’ve reached after about twenty years of drinking. Isn’t it strange if what one says in a foolish state is more truthful than what one says normally? Of course, there are often times when one can say things while drunk that they lacked the courage to say when sober.

pg.52

“It’s just your mood.” The widespread use of this expression probably means that many people tend to trivialise ‘moods.’ However, I believe there’s nothing as trustworthy as one’s mood. I consider paying close attention to one’s own mood to be a shortcut to happiness. And above all, I think there’s little in life more important than a good mood.

pg.60

In short, I’ve been wishing for things that move further away the more I wish for them. Perhaps that’s why I’ve developed the habit of thinking, ‘It doesn’t matter’ if I do nothing. If I think ‘I want to do nothing’ or ‘I must do nothing,’ the situation only gets worse. It’s better to think that it doesn’t matter if I do nothing, and it also doesn’t matter if I do something.

pg.117

Therefore, one must get used to letting a day pass without a clear solution. One shouldn’t be too disappointed. That way, one can avoid major frustration.

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pg.153

However, it’s clear that after those initial three months, lost something. And that it can never be regained. There are values in this world that disappear the moment they become known to many.

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pg.236

In that sense, the dead are actually all still with us in the world we live in. They might be inside the wooden table where the computer I’m writing this on rests, or contained within the raindrops that fell a few days ago, or perhaps residing in the button mushrooms I just ate. They will certainly be somewhere within my liver or pancreas. If it’s someone who died a very long time ago, they might have been nestled in the moonlight that streamed through my room window last night. After I die, I too will surely follow a path similar to theirs, yet entirely different. Death is never disappearing. It is merely scattering and changing form.

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pg.261

Like everyone else, I am constantly changing. There were so many changes even while writing this one book. I’m glad I finished it in a year. If I had written it for two or three years, readers would likely have been annoyed, thinking, ‘What’s wrong with this guy, why is he so inconsistent?’ Anyway, this book is a record of who I was over the past year. While writing, I diligently tried to meet that person, and now I am trying to let him go and welcome a slightly newer me.