but not crushed

14 Nov, 2023

중꺾마

Koreans love abbreviating things these days.¹ Some pop culture reference or common shortening that I don't initially get nor care to commit to long-term memory. This one felt a bit different though.

"중여한건 꺾이지 않은 마음"

which translates to "what matters is an undefeatable heart".

It's hard to find appropriate English equivalents for certain words (마음 = heart/mood/feeling/mind/personality/will, kind of all at once? depends on the context), so you could put it a few different ways – "what's important is an unbroken spirit", so on and so forth.

I feel like Koreans have all these nuanced, poetic ways of portraying a fighting spirit, of living diligently to rise another day, putting one foot after another when it feels like you can't. A richer vocabulary able to express what I feel when Latin characters fail me.

I am incredibly weary.

So many hopeful starts ending in disappointing finishes, near-misses or black-boxes you'll never get to open, paths never explored.

I want to lament like King David in the Book of Psalms, such as the first two verses of Psalm 13 when he writes "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? ² How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?"

At certain points I wish for soup that warms more than the stomach. One that warms to the bone and embraces me warmly when my nose is still tinged red from the biting winter winds on my walk here and I take off my scarf and gloves in a tired heap.

I wish to believe I have a heart that remains undefeatable, in the face of defeat after defeat. Though with a magnifying glass it's plain to see– the cracks and the scars, the wrinkles slowly forming from its diligent beating and thrum.

I keep reminding myself "아무것도 아니야, it's nothing, don't mind it" when I keep hitting hurdle after hurdle (and indeed mind it). But, there are only so many reminders before you look down to realize your legs are weary, your feet well-calloused.

I—

I cannot give up.

I must keep walking.

I must keep running.

No matter how many different lifetimes ago February feels, I will continue to live lifetimes more until this race is finished.

2 Corinthians 4:7-10 came to mind before I started my Monday morning, so I read it for my devotionals:

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ⁸ We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

Our pain and lamentations are bracketed by a greater hope. "There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind" as C.S. Lewis put it once.

I finished reading the bestseller Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin earlier this summer, and a poignant picture I remember Zevin painted with a quote from Sam's grandmother Bong Cha explained how one was to continue in this life.

"How did we get through?" Bong Cha had been baffled by Sam's question. "We got up in the morning," she said finally. "We went to work. We went to the hospital. We came home. We went to sleep. We did it again."

Samuel Beckett, best known for writing Waiting for Godot, had in his book², The Unnamable, the last words (and they shall be mine as well)–

You must go on.

I can't go on.

I'll go on.