Eyes

In a magazine in the 1930s, poet Baik Seok said, “Shut your mouth, think, get furious and express sadness.” You may find it weird for a poet to advise one to get angry, but people would have nodded to the suggestion at the time. People righteously should have gotten furious about the situation in Joseon. Most Koreans possessed just one piece of great anger (over Japan’s colonial rule).

Today, there is no one piece of anger. Great anger is broken into pieces. We all have become the owner of little pieces of the anger of our own. Anger is only awaiting a moment to burst. If someone hits you hard in the shoulder and runs away, you will unleash your anger mountain without reservation. I fear that such anger among millions of people against millions may have started.

When the sense of fear froze my mind, I read the poem. In the poem, beans soaked with water are rolling in the holes of a millstone. With the sense of anger in my mind, I would have thought that even trivial material repels each other. However, the poet thought those beans were helping each other. Beans were trying their best to cover others’ meshed eyes. All those beans are fragile, but they help each other. They don’t express anger just because I am in jeopardy or unleash furor because the others are weak.

In the autumn, both leaves and crops change into warm colors. People also wear warm clothes to stay warm but feel chilly in their minds. I hope people overwhelmed with anger will also come under bright autumn sunlight.