The essence of life is not in having more.
Rather, it is about taking away, emptying, and filling that empty space with your heart.
Lee Sang-hoon's prose collection, "Abundant Poverty," is a long record of a man's life that testifies to the "abundance of emptiness."
His writing speaks to the depths of human existence through the quiet warmth of everyday life, rather than through flashy philosophy or literary techniques.
He slowly traces the threads of people, objects, memories, and time with his fingertips, quietly telling us that “life is ultimately something to be endured with love and sincerity.”
The sentences are imbued with the earthy scent of early spring and are marked by the rings of old trees.

His prose does not praise or beautify any one subject.
Rather, it is closer to an attempt to find the ‘pattern of humanity’ that flows within all beings.
He does not try to avoid pain, does not hide his suffering, and instead of carrying the weight of sorrow, he draws fragrance from it.
He reads the dignity of life in the face of a person who smiles despite his illness, in the fingertips of an old mother, in the small wild flowers on the path along the rice paddy and in the worn-out shoes.
It is a kind of beauty that can never be captured in the language of splendid civilization or achievement.
The abundance that Lee Sang-hoon envisions is not visible possessions, but the invisible productivity of the heart.
He redefines the standard of health from the presence or absence of pain to the 'quality of being alive', and finds the meaning of being alive not in material things but in relationships and sincerity.

His writing style is concise yet profound.
Like poetry, it holds a long aftertaste in a short breath, and does not lose the light of the present even in reminiscence.
He refines sentences as if he were plowing a field with the hands of an old farmer, and connects paragraphs with the breath of a human being.
When a sentence ends, a lingering feeling lingers, and when the lingering feeling ends, thoughts grow.
He says.
“To live is to discover something new in the old repetition of each day, and to recognize the sacredness hidden in the familiar.” As readers read his writing, they find themselves recalling aspects of life they had forgotten.
Things like the backs of my parents, the names of my lost friends, and the smell of an alley in my hometown that I once visited, slowly come back to life through the sentences.

What makes Lee Sang-hoon's prose special is that it is not a simple record of recollection or impression, but rather a reflection on the 'ethics of existence.'
He believes that the lower a person becomes, the deeper he becomes, and the more he empties himself, the more fulfilled he becomes.
Like water flowing from a mountain to the sea, the law of existence that grows as it descends runs through his life.
So his sentences always flow smoothly and lowly.
The true meaning of abundance lies in the attitude of choosing maturity over success, depth over height, and silence over words.
He asks silently.
"Where do you stand now? Are you measuring yourself not by how much you have, but by how much you can love?"