Life is a waterfall
where do we take
shortcuts to acquire knowledge or
paths to finality…?
I like being the person
with ink on my fingers,
not to mention this
place is a mad backdrop.
my words, thoughts, melting
like this violin pop song.
K culture is the legacy
no old Korean could have
ever hoped for.
Time as a scarce resource. Remorse. Resentment. Comparison. Tools. I have been grappling with being infantilized and feeling like I must do everything! However, the consistent refrain of “you can do anything, not everything” is pounding in my head. As is the reminder that not everyone is keeping a tab in their head, even if that is something I grew up with.
Leanne Simpson said her ancestors’ lifeways were meant to fit in with the greater/existent matrix of life (water and land). I want to fit in…don’t we all? And this impulse pushes me to make choices I then have to live with. Fitting in as an outsider is also wrong. It’s trying when I already intuitively knew I might regret certain plans, but continued with them anyway. I’m a foreigner here. But, I’m also sympathetic, mildly aware, trying to learn, following cues. Not something all foreigners are up to.
The photos are from within and nearby a cistern art installation in 홍제천 Hongje neighborhood of Seoul. As I walked near a manmade waterfall, this song from System of a Down came into my mind, which I used to listen to 20 years ago:
“Life is a waterfall
We’re one in the river
And one again after the fall
Swimming through the void
We hear the word
We lose ourselves but we find it all”