Hello, dear neighbors who have found Cogito, ergo sum.
Today the world is filled with the noise of election day.
Setting aside the clamorous feast of words for a moment, I wish to share with you a small but profound thought I encountered while walking along the park path.”
Of Wild Berries, Pomegranates, and Reflection on This Election Day
Back in 1973, during my senior year of high school, our Korean literature teacher, Mr. Lee Min-young, who was also a published poet, casually dropped a profound remark during class: "The finest word in the Korean language is 'Meot.' It represents a supreme value that defies any translation or verbal description." To a foreigner, Meot might be roughly translated as charm or style, but to us, it meant something far deeper—an inner grace, integrity, and a certain noble, romantic way of living.
Thinking of him brings back a vivid memory of a class where we were studying The Tale of Chunhyang. In the story, the star-crossed lovers, Chunhyang and Mongryong, are both sixteen years old—a magical age known in Korea as I-pal Cheong-chun (literally meaning 'Two times Eight Youth'). We grew up in an era heavily bound by the strict Confucian rule of Nam-nyeo-chil-se-bu-dong-seok—which decreed that boys and girls should not sit together after the age of seven. It was a time when even a married couple, walking side by side on a path, would naturally separate at the entrance of their village, with the wife shifting to walk three paces behind her husband out of traditional modesty. Growing up under such rigid restraint, our youthful curiosity about the passionate romance of the sixteen-year-old lovers in Chunhyang was understandably explosive.
When Mr. Lee asked the room, "Any questions?", my mischievous desk mate instantly shot his hand up and yelled, "Sir! Seung-yeon has a question!" I was caught completely off guard, my mind going utterly blank. The boys around me started buzzing, egging me on: "Yeah, go on! Ask him!" Another classmate whispered a cheeky hint comparing Chunhyang’s virginity to a Japanese word. Pressed by my peers, I had no choice but to clean up the rowdy suggestion and asked, in the most polite Korean phrasing possible, about her "pure virginity." The entire all-boys classroom erupted into a roaring "Waaaaah!" Trying to maintain strict classroom discipline, Mr. Lee thundered, "You, come up to the front!" At that moment, my loyal classmates chimed in together in their thick Busan dialect: "Sir! Please forgive him just this once, please!"
Amused by the playful uproar of his students, the poet-teacher simply chuckled and settled the chaos with a heavy yet warm piece of advice: "You boys will naturally understand these things when you grow older. It will absolutely never appear on your college entrance exams, so clear your minds."
That expansive spirit of Meot—the way our teacher embraced the rowdy, innocent cheekiness of youth with a gentle laugh—came rushing back to me today. It has traveled across fifty years of time to strike my heart with immense weight, triggered by the sight of a shameless election banner hanging at my apartment gate at 2:00 AM, filled with empty promises. Escaping the noisy political rhetoric of the city, I walked into Yongso Well-being Park in Gijang. The lush early-summer greenery served as a serene mirror, allowing me to quiet the worldly noise and gaze into the true essence of the Meot my teacher once spoke of.
Along the park trail, I picked a tiny, ripe wild berry and popped it into my mouth. It was too small and rustic to fill my mouth, but its tart juice carried a pure, raw truth, entirely free of deception or artificial packaging. Perhaps that sharp, sour burst acted as a catalyst, pulling up a deeply buried word from the reservoir of my memory: 'Pomegranate (石榴)'.
Suddenly, I thought of an old hometown friend, a female schoolteacher born in 1955 like me, who had stubbornly held her ground and raised her son entirely on her own in Busan through a long, bitter separation caused by her husband's infidelity. After decades of weathering the harsh storms of life and successfully raising her son into a fine man, her husband—now old, penniless, childless with his other partner, and with nowhere else to go—came crawling back to find his grown son, his face thickly plated with unashamed brass. To outsiders, this late-life reunion might have seemed utterly shameless. Yet, woven into their reconciliation is a weight of forgiveness and an honest endurance that no one can easily judge. It wasn't a flashy, decorated life, but a true Meot forged by surviving the biting winds of reality.
A pomegranate is very much like that. When you break open its brilliant rind, it reveals jewel-like seeds packed tightly inside, looking immensely prosperous. Yet, that external brilliance can sometimes merely mirror human greed and hollow packaging. How is that different from the flashy campaign promises of politicians who hang banners at apartment gates, trying to blind the elderly with a few pennies just to buy their votes?
Confucius never wrote a single line of text in his life, yet a massive, rigid ideology was left in his name. Today’s political arena does nothing but play semantic games to justify their own clout within the loopholes of the law. Yet, before the law, there is ethics; and before ethics, there is the basic morality and sense of shame that a human being must possess. That is the bare minimum of Meot required to be human. Just as the sweat beaded on one's fingertips is far more real than abstract intellectual calculations, nature was quietly asking us a question today: Will we choose the rustic truth of the wild berry, or the flashy, deceptive packaging of the pomegranate?
Walking back after casting my vote, I realized that no matter how loudly the 5th-rate politicians shout and cause an uproar, what truly sustains this world with grace is the honest, quiet happiness earned by people like my schoolteacher friend, who silently endured and bloomed. Even in a world where the shameless swagger, I pray that our inner reflections remain as eternally green as the honest purity of a single wild berry.
By the way, on our way to the polling station, I wouldn't dare utter a word like, "We are entering the village, so walk three paces behind me," as in the old days. The moment I did, my wife would sharply snap, "What did you just say?" followed by an unimaginable storm. Keeping my mouth firmly shut and matching my steps right next to her in this simple, quiet companionable walk—isn't this the true, unvarnished Meot of my autumn years? I hope that the remaining years of our lives will ripen beautifully rounded with genuine Meot.
“Thank you for taking the time to look up ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ and read my writing. Though the world may be full of empty chatter, may our inner reflections always remain evergreen. Wishing you a healthy June.”
Translated Summary
보리수와 석류, 그리고 오늘 선거일의 사유
"안녕하세요. 'Cogito, ergo sum'을 찾아주신 이웃 여러분. 세상이 온통 시끄러운 선거일입니다. 소란스러운 말잔치를 잠시 뒤로하고, 공원 길을 걸으며 마주한 작고 깊은 사유를 나누고자 합니다."
오늘, 세상이 온통 시끄러운 선거일이다.
벽보마다 걸린 후보자들의 화려한 면면과 귀를 찌르는 말잔치를 보며, 나는 씁쓸한 질문을 던질 수밖에 없었다. 한국 사회는 어쩌다 이 모양이 되었는가. 사방에서 쏟아지는 정치의 허상과 거짓 포장에 지쳐, 도망치듯 기장 용소웰빙공원으로 향했다. 초여름의 녹음이 우거진 길을 걸으며 세상의 소음을 지워내려 애썼다
그때 나뭇가지 사이로 보리수나무가 눈에 들어왔다. 초여름 햇살을 받아 붉게 익은 열매들이 가지마다 대롱대롱 매달려 있었다. 호기심에 한 알을 따서 입에 넣었다. 툭 하고 터지는 순간, 혀끝에 시큼하고 떫은맛이 강렬하게 퍼졌다.
사실 내 안에도 작은 소란이 하나 생겼다. 머릿속을 맴도는 단어 하나가 도무지 생각나지 않아 온종일 마음 한구석이 답답했던 것이다. 분명 아는 빛깔이고 아는 맛인데, 입안에서만 맴돌 뿐 이름이 나오지 않던 그 과일. 생각만 해도 입에 침이 고이던 그 붉은 기억을 붙잡으려 애쓰며 공원 길을 걷고 있었다.
아 어릴때 아버님이 일하고 집에 오시면 꼭 따다 주신던 과일인데 참 많이도 먹었는데
아, 바로 그 찰나였다.
입안 가득 고이는 침과 함께, 나를 괴롭히던 그 단어가 섬광처럼 뇌리를 스쳤다. '석류'.
껍질을 열면 붉은 알갱이가 보석처럼 쏟아져 나오는 그 화려한 과일. 작은 보리수 열매 한 알이 지닌 새콤함과 식감이 먼 기억 속에 잠들어 있던 석류를 깨워, 단어의 봉인을 시원하게 풀어준 것이다.
막혔던 체증이 내려가는 듯한 해방감 속에서, 나는 입안의 보리수와 머릿속의 석류를 가만히 응시하기 시작했다.
보리수는 참 소박하다. 작은 열매 하나가 입안을 가득 채우지도 못하면서, 그 맛은 꾸밈없고 거칠다. 그러나 그 투박함 속에는 어떠한 거짓도 없는 자연의 진실이 담겨 있다.
반면 기억 속에서 되살아난 석류는 다르다. 단단한 껍질을 열면 빛나는 알갱이가 빈틈없이 가득 차 있어, 보는 이로 하여금 풍요와 번영을 떠올리게 한다. 보리수의 시큼함이 날것 그대로의 삶의 진실을 보여준다면, 석류의 매혹적인 화려함은 인간의 끊임없는 욕망을 상징하는 듯하다. 실제로 보리수는 불교에서 깨달음의 나무로 기억되고, 석류는 고대부터 다산과 풍요의 상징이 아니었는가. 나는 지금 보리수에서 깨달음을, 석류에서 욕망을 본다.
두 열매의 맛과 이미지가 입안과 머릿속에서 어지럽게 교차하는 순간, 자연은 나에게 묵직한 화두를 던진다.
우리는 진실을 택할 것인가, 아니면 화려한 포장을 택할 것인가
정치의 허상이 세상의 귀를 시끄럽게 할 때, 우연히 산책길에서 맛본 보리수 열매는 백 마디 말보다 더 깊은 울림을 남긴다. 석류의 화려함과 보리수의 소박함은 단순한 과일의 맛이 아니었다. 그것은 오늘 우리가 마주한 삶과 이 사회를 날카롭게 비추는 거울이었다.
"귀한 시간 내어 'Cogito, ergo sum'을 찾아주시고 글을 읽어주셔서 감사합니다. 말잔치로 가득한 세상이지만, 우리 안의 사유만큼은 늘 푸르기를 바랍니다. 건강한 유월 보내세요."