Author's Note
Of course, just keep going and keep doing it. 5 things you can do

2020

18 Things to Remember Hard
Reading the Changes 22
Beings that can be touched by hands and feet 26
30 Ways to Use "What's Up"
Being able to choose 34
What did you do during your break? 38
42 Things to Do in November
Because it's 'that person's words' 46
Continuing on, beggar 50

2021

A Simple but Big Dream 56
Living Well with Grief 60
Crossroads 64
If you have a scale in your heart 68
Anything one day 72
There were no spectators, but there were people 76
80 Lost but Unforgettable
Night 84: Waiting for the Return of the Young Poet
Step by step, step by step, 88
On Endurance 92
What Comes After What Comes After 96

2022

102 Proverbs in Korean
Last and next time 106
110 people waiting for spring even in spring
Signals 114
There is no next to equality 118
Unexpected Words 122
The Difficulty of Give and Take 126
Don't Become Indifferent 130
134 Climbing Over a Wall and Digging Through It
Ways of Mourning 138
Knowing It's Getting Dark 142
Yet Hope 146

2023

365 Days of Resolution 152
Properly repeat and repeat 156
Today is never again, today will never be again 160
164 No Matter What
Knock on the door 168
Imagine Living Differently 172
Empowerment, determination, revival 176
We need more diverse words 180
Family Life 184
The reason for traveling is leisure 188
Apologetic Person 192

2024

Today's Scene 198
A Folding Mind 202
The Power of 'Maybe' 206
The Yellow Ribbon is Yellow Again Today 210
The Tenth Meaning of Biji 214
Cooking and Writing 218
Listening is a great thing 222
Daily Exploration Life 226
The Power of Guessing 230
Finding Hidden Treasures 234
Some Words Run Through Life 238
Rest for the Eye-Consciousness 242
Rice and Garlic 246

2025

Seeking and Retrieving 252
Discovery Writing 256
260 Words to Match Waiting
It's okay if you don't know 264

The past was filled with particularly sad and miserable events.
For us who are enduring in our own places, poet Oh Eun has continued to read, write, listen, and speak with a wandering heart, searching for a single point of light that exerts a greater presence the darker it gets.
In a way that moves away from making assumptions, in a way that is willing to imagine what is not there.
Here is someone who has the courage to face the invisible pain and loss that occurs inside and outside the body, and to consistently record and remember.
In the pain and sorrow of loss, time does not grow old.
No matter how hard you try to protect something, there are things you will inevitably lose, but there are also things that do not end in loss but are reborn as longing.
A small, bright, and warm feeling of hope born when a candle is lit in the dark of the night.
While mocking himself, saying, 'Is it there? Where is it?', the poet silently carries out the work of gathering singles and creating layers.
With the innocent heart that finds dad by your side when you cry out, “It hurts!”
The year 2020, the starting point of the book, was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when work was the only thing that could be done.
During the pandemic, the unfamiliar term "social distancing" was necessary for each other's safety.
It was a time when physical barriers acted as psychological barriers, making each other's lives a little lonelier and tiring, and the time continued indefinitely.
We've learned how much persistence helps sustain life, how simple things like taking pictures of the sky or taking a run around the neighborhood make us who we are.
Even if it's something personal, if you do it every day, it becomes on a different level.
Reading and writing, which I have been doing consistently, actively intervene in and color my life, carving new patterns into my daily life.
That's why the person who writes is always in the prime of his life.
No two days are the same for someone who seeks to know himself well.


Poet Oh Eun says that if finding a clue to untangle a thread is an act of understanding the world, then conversely, finding a clue to weave a thread is an act of understanding oneself.
When he first started writing, he was someone who tried to find answers through writing, but now he is someone who knows that questions remain after writing.
Just as small courage becomes great courage, small questions transform into great questions.
Just as calling an old book a companion book is like calling a book a companion book, the poet knows that even the same object changes its status when given a new name.
That's how 'difference' comes into being.
The mind that is close to the boundary, outside, voluntarily moving away from the center and approaching 'A'.
Such people are curious about the 'inside' rather than the 'outside'.
Towards a scene that only those who approach the periphery can see.
The poet pledges.
I want to live the life of a family member, not the life of a rich person.
The poet says:
"Exploratory Life" was due on the first day of school, but would the exploration ever be completed?
I wonder if it will ever be completed.
Perhaps life can only be guessed at through the daily exploration of life.
In the lecture, poet Oh Eun asks a question using the expression “Life is like an egg” as an example of a metaphor.
Why is that? It's bound to break somehow.
Because it has to be broken to be born.
Because it appears.
Because the next scene unfolds.
Poet Oh Eun believes that literature is not a tower built with the language of success and victory, but rather a pile of stones that has been built with difficulty by embracing failure and defeat.
He will continue to knock on the door called people and open the door called book cover.


Author's Note

Of course, it's something that just needs to be continued.

For the past ten years, I have been a serial writer.
I wrote a column to meet the monthly deadline.
In the meantime, the name of the serial corner also changed.
I first started writing in a column called 'Youth Straightforward', but after a few years, the name was changed to 'Straightforward'.
I laughed to myself, thinking that it meant my youth had passed.
Then, a few years later, I started serializing the articles I had written for 'Jiksol' in the 'Culture and Life' section.
There is still a corner called "Directness," and when you recall that the meaning of directness is "to say the truth or as it is," you nod your head.
Because my writing has always been about moving away from making assumptions, about being willing to imagine what isn't there.

Serialization means “to publish a long article or comic book in several installments in a newspaper or magazine.”
I think the important thing here is ‘continue’.
To keep going, creators must periodically come up with something.
You should also develop the habit of writing down what you remember so that you don't forget it.
This requires an attitude of paying close attention to what is happening inside and outside of me.
We need to think carefully about the meaning of that.
You must complete an essay based on your notes and submit it before the deadline.
Newspapers and magazines, especially dailies, cannot delay their publication date.

Timing is also important.
Every April, the Sewol ferry disaster comes to mind, and every October, the Itaewon disaster comes to mind.
As we approach the end of the year, we will be filled with excitement for the holiday season, but we will also be reminded of the shock of martial law every year.
It's difficult not to write about Christmas in an article published on Christmas Eve, and it's not right to ignore such a serious matter and just lament your fate.
We must constantly move between personal and social memories, moving from ‘not yet’ to ‘right now.’
We must move quickly between words that have not yet appeared, sentences that have not yet been expressed, scenes that have not yet been visualized, and stories that have not yet been told.
Timing is about getting the pace right, not letting the moment slip away, and moving the scene back to the ground where the event occurred.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to the Kyunghyang Shinmun.
I have been able to stand on the road since 2016 thanks to your generous support.
I could stand silently and look around.
It wasn't just about standing there, it was about walking somewhere and settling down somewhere.
I was able to step into places I would normally have passed by without hesitation.
Some of them might have taken my life in a slightly different direction.


Living each day as if it were a series, I was able to connect yesterday to today and today to tomorrow.
Even without the series, I would have been a writer, but without the series, I would have been a writer a little less diligently.

In the words of the author of 『Reading Together』, I wrote this:
“Dadokdadok is an onomatopoeia, but when we read or are read to, we hear something that others cannot hear.
Sometimes you hear the warm and affectionate comfort of “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and other times you hear the urgent question, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” “So what?” is a word that is connected to “It’s okay.”
This is what I say when I want to focus on my own heart without being caught up in other people's opinions.
It means accepting yourself as you are, not proving yourself by comparing yourself to others.
It may sound like a simple and indifferent statement, but the seed of self-affirmation is firmly planted within it.

I don't know what will sprout from the seed, but I practice out loud for that time.
So what, I planted it.
I don't know yet how it will grow or how it will take root.
It is only natural that people who do not know are curious.

May 2025
Oh Eun