Empathetic author Kang Se-hyung releases new essay after five years
A small and sparkling record of everyday life, written down while walking and thinking.

A person who doesn't open the front door more days than days he does.
A person who loves spending time alone in a space that is optimized for them, working from home, eating from home, and taking care of their plants at home.
A person who feels good when a promise is made to someone they welcome, but the promise is canceled.
Author Kang Se-hyung, known as the 'writer of empathy' and loved by 700,000 readers, has compiled some special writings.
'Do I walk to think?
'I wonder if I walk to stop my thoughts.' This is a story about a sparkling daily life that I wrote while walking every day for a year.

Although he calls himself a person who gets bored easily, gives up quickly, and is picky about everything, Kang Se-hyung was helpless when it came to walking.
He worries about the health of those who walk slower than him, and about the survival of stores that have posted temporary closure notices.
Looking at a sparrow smaller than a fist, I think of all the weak beings in the world.
I buy 2,000 won worth of green peppers from the old lady selling street food, and I am grateful for the uneventful day, collecting peaceful happiness.
Collect small joys, small pleasures, and trivial pleasures.
And, it truly recovers.

Author Kang Se-hyung says:
I hope that my small daily life of walking, thinking, and recording will be a small encouragement to someone.
Just as I opened the 'closed front door', I hope that someone who reads this book will try to open the 'closed something' that is blocking their path.
His writing, which contemplates extinction while walking in spring and the excitement of new beginnings while walking in winter, will become a small spark that ignites the emotions hidden within your heart at unexpected moments.

I also remember a long time ago when a friend of mine told me that he was scared when he saw little children just starting to walk down the street.
“I was afraid I might step on it without seeing it...” At that time, I didn’t quite understand what he was saying.
'How did you step on it?
It's not even an ant, so I can't help but see it.'

These days, I often think of my friend's cautious mind, afraid of harming something smaller and weaker than me.
No matter how small and weak I am, there are definitely beings in the world who are smaller and weaker than me.
These days, I think about the sparrows smaller than my fist that I meet on my walks, thinking that if I make even the slightest misstep, if I am even the slightest bit rude, there are beings weaker than me who will be hurt because of me.


When I was so weak,
Even when I feel infinitely small and shabby,
I don't want to be someone who only sees me, someone who can only see me.


Because there will always be beings weaker and smaller than me, everywhere.

--- p.20 From “Monday, May 8, 2023”

One time, I met a guy my age who was slower than me, walking really, really slowly, and my eyes were drawn to him as he sat down on a bench to rest.
Did you recently have some kind of surgery or something and are currently recovering?
After I started living a life close to pain, I kept finding myself drawn to people who were in pain.


I became curious about his story,
I only wish him good luck in my heart,
I also passed him at a slower pace than most people.


Come to think of it, these days I
It seems like he's spreading good luck everywhere.


I'm always at home, so when I come out into the world, I'm constantly surprised at how many people there are with sad, sick, and tired expressions.
So somehow I keep wishing him good luck.
On the one hand, I hope that the struggle is just my own fault.
--- p.29 From "Friday, May 12, 2023"

You come across a young man and woman arguing loudly on the street at night, and a young couple embracing each other and crying loudly.
A woman is sitting on the street and crying.
The man standing still and looking down at the woman looks very tired.
On the contrary, this time a man is crying and desperately appealing for something.
The woman looks away while he holds her wrist.
I'm not sure if the complex expression on the woman's face is sadness, weariness, or even love.
Maybe it's all of them.

Everyone is working hard to love.
A love that makes people tired, sad, and hurt like that,
Everyone is working hard.
--- p.31 From "Sunday, May 14, 2023"

Rather than simply saying that I'm getting older and my memory is declining, I often wonder if my brain has developed preferences and is only storing the things it wants to remember, while the rest is locked away in some corner drawer.
I still don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
In the days when everything new and everything was automatically saved and automatically played back, there were of course many good things, but there were also many painful things.
I've passed the time when I was in pain every single day, and now I'm at an age where I can put the painful things in a drawer and only take them out once in a while.
I'm at an age where I'm not easily moved, but that's why I'm so happy to see works that make me feel that way.
Yet, sometimes, I miss the days when my emotions were so up and down.

--- p.72 From "Sunday, June 18, 2023"

Why did they grow plants like this?
I wondered if I was crazy for endlessly increasing the number of children I couldn't handle.
But that's what I needed at that time.
I needed something to protect me from the endless barrage of external stimuli.
I needed my own time, my own protective shield, where I could be completely alone, and for me, that was plants.

A very sharp period has passed,
I am going through a bit of a tough time these days,
Go for a walk.


Spend less time indoors with your plants and more time outside to explore the plants and the world.
I still wear a hat and mask and have earphones in my ears, leaving some level of protection, but I'm now able to open the front door.
So, I can't just throw away all the plants that helped me get to that point.
I still grow plants.
But now I have made a clear promise to myself that I will only raise it to the level I can handle… .

The kids are growing up.

The number has decreased, but the children keep growing up.
Our house has become a jungle again.

--- p.92 From “Wednesday, June 28, 2023”

I see the world only through my eyes.
It's something I'll never be able to confirm until I die, since I'll never be able to see the world through someone else's eyes, but I sometimes wonder about it.
Are we all seeing the same thing? When traveling with others, we often see different things even when visiting the same place.
You'll be surprised when you exchange photos with each other.
Was there something like this here? This is what you see.
This is what I see in my eyes.


It is said that the blue night sky in Van Gogh's paintings, as well as Monet's misty water lilies series, may have been influenced by the cataracts he suffered from in his old age.
There is an analysis that Dostoevsky's novels were influenced by the delusions that arose from the epilepsy he suffered from.
He wrote what was really going on in his head.
In fact, there are so many analyses and articles about the impact of such mental illness on art.
So sometimes I really wonder.
I wonder if this is really how the world looks through their eyes.
I wonder if such things are really happening in their heads.
If artists are people who see things a little differently from the majority, think things a little differently, and create things a little differently, then aren't delusions and art ultimately just a hair's breadth apart?

--- p.153 From “Tuesday, August 8, 2023”

All through that time, I studied and relayed the facts to my family.
We presented a number of possible options, listened to other families' stories, and coordinated and compiled differing opinions.
Whenever I was playing that role, whenever I realized that I could only play that role, there was only one thought that I had the most.
I don't really know what kind of person my father is.
So I really don't know what the options are for my father.


It was like that all through that period, but even after the funeral and returning home, I still didn't know the answer.
How to say goodbye to a father you weren't close with.
And actually, I still don't know.


It's just that I think about my father more than before.
Some days, I'm walking down the street and suddenly stop.
I stop because I know that if I go further down this road, I will see the restaurant.
The restaurant I went to with my father.
Some days, I turn off the lights and lie down, but I toss and turn for a long time.

--- p.200 From “Tuesday, September 19, 2023”

Even though it's a road I walk every day,
I walk in the new scenery without feeling the cold.

They say that the secret to long-lasting love is to fall in love with the same person many times, and the scenery that changes every day makes me open the front door.
--- p.297 From “Tuesday, December 19, 2023”

Am I in the right place now, or am I still wandering, unable to find my place?
Or maybe I just lost my place a long time ago.
Perhaps my obsession with my belongings is also a manifestation of this anxiety.

Even though I'm over 40, I still have the same concerns.
Where is my place?
--- p.303 From "December 24, 2023"

I've always been quick to give up.

If it seemed like I couldn't have it, if it seemed like I wouldn't be good at it, if it seemed like it wouldn't suit me, if it was a relationship I couldn't persuade anyway, if it was something I couldn't achieve anyway, I always tended to turn away easily.
Whether the object is an object, a hobby, a person, a job, or a dream.

I also think that giving up is a talent, so I think there were many times when it was good to give up quickly.
But of course, sometimes I have doubts.
Perhaps I too easily covered up what I could have had, what I could have achieved, and what I gave up by rationalizing it as talent.

--- p.321 From "Friday, January 19, 2024"

One day, suddenly, without a sound,
In a story about something that disappeared without a trace,
I always get my heart stolen.

I have never seen a bird graveyard either.
I've never even seen a cat grave.
Where do all these birds and cats go?

Walking through the spring before its extinction.
I walk while looking at the flower petals that will disappear tomorrow.

But I know that eventually everything will go away.
Still, human greed raises its head in one corner of the heart.
I wish you would leave a little more slowly.

This spring, and all life on the verge of extinction.

--- p.378 From “Monday, April 8, 2024”