“Love is a collection of things given with the heart, and life is a series of collected loves.”

A new work by Lim Tae-ju, author of the prose poem "Mother's Letter," which moved 3 million readers.
A delicate and clear portrayal of the "sense of love and understanding" that allows us to live in the present.

"What I Loved Today" is a collection of essays by poet Lim Tae-ju, who presents his work after three years, displaying a unique sensibility, metaphors that transcend poetry and prose, and wit and insight.
What do I mean when I say I love you?
I love you now, not yesterday, in front of me.
The object could be a person, a flower, or an evening glow.
The things I willingly embraced, treated affectionately, and envied gathered together to create today and compile the life I call my own.
This book is divided into four themes: breath, color, writing, and stars, and it unfolds a list of the loves that keep me alive.
You can encounter the mature prose of an author who has pursued poetic sentences and shining stars in each and every element, aphoristic sentences that make you draw a line.

When I say I love you, I mean I love you today.
What you said yesterday is useless, and what you promised to say tomorrow is useless.
Love is born today and dies today, so only what is said today is valid.
Love is born anew every day and refreshes people.
People can only live each day and love each day they survive.
The things I love today prove my existence.
If life asks me what today is, I can only say what I loved today.
Only what I loved today is love.
--- pp.16~17 From "What I Loved Today"

I write in the name of my father.
I will leave you only what I know through my own experience, relying on the time of the moon.
When life asked me difficult questions about life, I couldn't bring myself to answer.
You too, I'm sure.
Therefore, this is a word of encouragement that I can barely convey despite my shame, and it is a reflection from someone who was born first but lived a miserable life.
--- p.100 From "To You Who Leaves My Embrace"

I am the language I choose.
If I speak in various ways, I become a colorful person, and if I speak in multi-layered ways, I become a metaphorical person.
Expressing is the act of choosing which aspect of myself to show.
The range of choices is the share of my world, and my world is limited to the range of expression.
Life is a verb, not a noun, so life is what you 'speak' about.
Since thoughts are not something you have but something you do, your life is as much as you think.
--- p.117 From “What color do you like?”

In the morning, we burned the flower trees that had been pruned in late autumn.
These include the genus Nungsohwa, Buldoohwa, Moksuhyuk, and Japoksalnamul.
When I see a flower tree blooming with a fiery flame even after death, I think of that person.
A person who came to me and lost without ever blooming a single flower.
The love I had was probably like that too.
He must have gone to someone and passed away without even leaving a memory.
Countless lives of love that died from loneliness, hope, and despair.
--- p.129 From “Burning a Flower Tree”

I like people who are closer to green.
These are used almost exclusively as background colors.
It serves to highlight red, white, or pink as a point.
They don't try to stand out or act rashly.
Greens become friends easily and mix without any sense of awkwardness.
So, the saying 'green is the same color' may have come about, meaning that whether it's green or grass green, it's all the same green.
--- pp.153~154 From "People Close to Green"

If you don't write, nothing happens.
As I continued to write, the colors of my writing style gradually began to emerge, and my sense of life became more acute.
I liked poetry better than narrative.
I believed that a single sentence could contain a life, and I wrote with that belief in mind.
For me, writing was like a code, useful in unlocking the secrets of life.

--- p.195 From "If You Don't Write"

Words are the houses where concepts live in their meaning.
The reason it is not a private home is because the concept has changed.
Just as truth is denied by new truths, the concepts we believed to be true change with the times.
So words also undergo changes in their perception of meaning.
This possibility of change, or variation by users, reveals the instability and imperfection of words.
So, a word is not a 'definition of meaning' that it contains, but a 'shadow of meaning' or 'outline of meaning'.
--- p.229 From "The Power of Words"

I believe that a true adult is one who has the power to control and regulate the good and evil within themselves.
I take the statement that humans possess not only goodness but also evil to mean that we should use both.
However, an adult is someone who can manage and use it appropriately.
Just as you should know how to feel pity when you see something pitiful, you should know how to feel anger when you see injustice.

--- p.264 From "What is an Adult?"

Life is coded as a default value for everyone, with ‘pain’ being the default for everyone.
So life doesn't stray from the orbit of suffering most of the time.
Each of us develops ways to deal with suffering, creates a philosophy of happiness, and practices moment-by-moment escape from suffering.
The process of enduring is difficult, but enduring is not entirely impossible.
Because it is a task that requires courage and comfort, a remedy called 'love' was invented.

--- p.307 From "The Chain of Life"