RED FOR VALIDATION

Wooaa, it's mid-November already! Seoul's getting darker and colder more quickly as it approaches winter, so if you're planning to go for a last-minute picnic to Seoul Forest or Han River (cause mid-term period's over), make sure you wear warm clothes and check the temperature and weather before you go (Kam and I took these pictures two weeks ago, and it was a lot more warmer than this week).

Speaking of which, I check my last post and oh dear, it's dated almost a month ago! Salute to people out there who are consistent when it comes to updating their blog, really. I don't know how you guys do it, especially if you're a full time student with part time jobs a few dozen other things to do. I finished my last exam just last week, so not only I didn't have the time to watch my Korean dramas (believe me it's for the sake of improving my Korean), I haven't had my portion of recreational readings for a while too. And you know what they say, you need to read loads in order to be able to write good.

Anywaay, to start the week off, I'd like to share a part that I really like from a book I just started reading several days ago, (before that, this is actually unimportant, but I'd been wanting to read this book for quite some time so when he suddenly announced that the book was on sale, I quickly went to amazon and literally purchased it 1 hour and 30 minutes before the amazon sale's over, yuhu!)

Here you go, a piece of thought from the genius J. S. Park to ponder on:

"If you could be secure in who you were before you did a single thing, then you could do the actual thing without using it to validate you."

And so during the weekend some questions have been bugging my mind and I thought it's important to share these crucial questions with you, fellow young people. "Was I insecure? If yes, no wonder, that must be the reason behind human's need for continuous validation. Now now, if they're connected... where did I seek my validation from before? And had constantly seeking for validation, trying to turn things for my own good, to make me look or feel good about myself been affecting my life and actions? Were they reflected in my works? What were my motives when it comes to making art, music, and all other things I enjoy doing? Was I merely doing those only to use them to validate myself later on and forgot what really matters, enjoy doing them? Do I want to stay in this state? This devastating validation seeking craving?" Because after all, our motives matter, they turn us into a certain kind of people, as J. S. Park writes, "The motives of those who do great things in their own power is often for the sake of their own greatness, and greatness started in the self will end itself because it seeks nothing else but itself." I don't want to stay in this state, I don' want to end myself. How, then, to be secure when I'm being me? Hm, at this rate it seems like I'll need more than a weekend to think about them questions, don't you think?

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Picture: Yong Kamila/ Brush: Stella Nikiko / Location: Sinchon Train Station, Seoul, South Korea