Life is not over yet
The thoughts that allow me to exist as myself

In Goethe's novel Faust, there is a sentence that says, "As long as man strives, he will wander."
Just as the protagonist, Dr. Faustus, wanders between the direction of life and desire, we humans go through a cycle of endless challenges, regrets, and reflections throughout our lives.
Sometimes despairing, sometimes happy, the cycle of life repeats itself until death.
To put it in Goethe's words, we could say, "As long as man exists, he is bound to wander."
Why are humans like this? In the words of existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger, it's because we are "thrown beings."
No human being is born at a time or place of their choosing.
We never chose life.
At some point, our consciousness was thrown onto the stage of this world.
So we continue to ask ourselves questions about who we are, why we were born, and what we should do, and we wander in search of answers.


Interestingly, the colors of wandering are different for each person.
Constant questions vibrate life, and these vibrations shake us here and there, but the form of shaking is different for each.
It's as if countless people are dancing on stage, but not the same dance, but each dance is different! On this stage called the world, we are perfecting our own "dance."
Friedrich Nietzsche, who opened the door to modern philosophy, expressed this in the following wonderful sentence:

“A dance with feet, a dance with thoughts, a dance with words,
And you have to be able to dance with a pen too.”

Philosophy provides an existential answer to the question of what constitutes 'I'.
This book is full of the thoughts of philosophers that can provide comfort and courage on the long journey of life to find one's own 'meaning of existence.'
You will hear life advice that is sometimes poignant yet humorous, sometimes warm yet passionate.

Oneself is not a means to an end, but an end in itself.
There is no special reason for being born, but birth itself is a 'purpose'.
This is called, in slightly more difficult terms, 'Vorlaufen zum Tode', or 'precursor to death'.
…that is, death is not the destruction of existence, but rather the completion of existence in time.
Although I was born not knowing who I was, I was created over time.
Therefore, one should not use one's time as a means to an end, but rather use it to perfect oneself.

--- p.23

Therefore, we must learn to part with the past.
Love, friendship, happiness, and the philosophy of life all change.
If we apply this standard to others, everything becomes natural.
The water just meets briefly somewhere and then disperses again.
Maybe in 10 years, I won't be who I am today.
In this way, we learn to love the present while making peace with the past that has already passed.

--- p.73

Even today, countless wonderful storytelling is born on social media.
Many of these are fake stories and advertisements co-opted by capital. Real stories are disappearing amidst the images and stories posted on social media.
As Han Byung-chul put it, the stories of the social media world are “trapped within a narrow orbit of time.”
In the story of modern society, which is decontextualized, detruthful, and demythologized, the human narrative that connects with objects has been lost.

--- p.106

If you look at it that way, the world is a world that moves dynamically at every moment.
This movement is a constant chemical reaction.
It is a space of creation that is observed differently depending on the time and space of each individual.
We call it a phenomenon.
So even though it may seem like everything is revealed in the same way, it is actually revealed in different ways depending on the relationship.
That is, relationships create everything in the universe at that moment.
There is no fixed world.
So, don't be discouraged.
Today, my position, my space and time, my will creates my world.
That world changes depending on what I encounter and what I relate to at this moment today.

--- p.163

The mindset that only the beliefs I believe in are unconditionally good and everything else is evil is the very foundation of evil.
Therefore, if we are to see the world correctly, we must be skeptical even when we like it, and tolerant even when we criticize it.
Rather than unconditionally liking or rejecting something, we should expand on the good parts within it, and even if we dislike something, we should discover the good parts and expand on them as well.
You have to be able to see a partial world.
Hope that the world can become a better place begins here.

--- p.193

The wind answers roughly to those who run roughly.
In fact, other power is self-power.
I am the lake and the world is the phenomenon contained within it.
So I have to clear myself first.
That way, you can see the muddy water and sometimes even find pearls.
And I can make his experience my own.
Experience is about opening your heart and listening.

--- p.245