三綱五倫

In the drama Reborn Rich, Chairman Jin Yang-cheol employs a certain expression:

"장사꾼이 이문 앞에서 부모 형제, 삼강오륜 다 따지가 우예 돈을 벌겠노"

It is far from an easy thing. One cannot help but ponder when a person could ever amass capital while scrupulously weighing their parents, siblings, and the moral codes of the Three Bonds and Five Relations. Why did such a thought surface? In truth, I find myself harboring that exact reflection quite frequently. Specifically, every single time my parents pay a visit to the hospital.

Today was precisely that species of day. When I placed a call to them around the afternoon, I was informed that my father was undergoing a CT scan because he was experiencing severe difficulty breathing. It is a remarkably frequent occurrence. Since my father’s age is now swiftly approaching eighty, it would be far from anomalous for any event to transpire at any given moment. Rather, I ought to feel grateful that he is not enduring colossal ailments relative to his advanced years. Yet, regardless of how healthy he may remain, his age is what it is, and the reality that a final parting could arrive at any second invariably strikes my heart with piercing agony.

When I first initiated my enterprise, I executed my labors entirely alone at home, which allowed me to observe the day-to-day existence of my father and mother from a close proximity. The days of my aged parents were tranquil and austere. Though I never made an outward show of it, a timer within my heart was invariably ticking down, its remaining duration dwindling. If the day were to dawn when my parents—who represent virtually my solitary justification for remaining alive—depart this world, absolutely everything I am executing at this contemporary moment might forfeit its entire meaning. I believe I was thoroughly saturated with anxiety and terror. Nevertheless, because I maintained faith that this path alone constituted the answer, I simply persisted with my enterprise. Perhaps I had systematically brainwashed myself into believing that this route was the solitary correct verdict.

Even now, I consistently deceive my parents utilizing a multitude of flowery embellishments. It is strictly to set their minds at ease. I am faring splendidly. There are no major tribulations. I am getting along excellently with zero anxieties regarding livelihood. In truth, it is a fabrication. Even when I bring in tens of millions of won, tens of millions of won promptly vanish; I endure abnormal breeches and terminations of contracts, and I occasionally inflict deep wounds upon individuals to whom I owe gratitude, sustaining an existence that mirrors a form of torture. I frequently ponder how on earth things culminated in this state. Is it because I have lived my life while meticulously weighing the Three Bonds and Five Relations? Did things turn out this way precisely because I exhausted my entire being to offer them my absolute best?

Though I have never once requested it, and regardless of how intensely I insisted I was perfectly fine, my parents—as though piercing through my façade to behold the raw truth—would invariably press whatever meager capital they possessed into my hands whenever times grew arduous. In those moments when I found myself utterly incapable of rejecting it, I harbored a profound loathing for my own self. Would things have manifested differently had I selected the exact identical choices as ordinary men? Would it have been disparate had I lived as the exact same species of demon? Though this world and this existence mirrored a perpetual torture chamber, ironical as it was, my parents alone—the very beings who gifted me this life—seemed to be cheering me on, imploring me never to surrender existence.

What remained within me was akin to an empty husk, holding nothing but the dregs of malice and a meager, residual flame of life. Appearing to lead a normal existence is nothing but an illusion. I possessed zero desire to grasp the world, human beings, or absolutely anything. Even as I yearn for every grain of sand to slip from my fingers so that my final breath may be claimed, ironical as it was, it felt as though my hands were being forcibly buried into the sand, compelling me to remain alive. Preventing me from surrendering. Forcing me to harbor hope.

I have executed the tasks that lay within my capability. Contacting them frequently, remaining a conversational companion to ease their isolation, and sustaining this life without snapping its thread. It feels as though I have preserved things by expending virtually every ounce of my available energy for that singular purpose. To an individual who has surrendered all attachment, existence possesses zero meaning.

There was an instance when I confessed my profound torment to my girlfriend. I articulated that very few justifications for remaining alive were left within me. While it was a thoroughly candid sentiment, it concurrently carried the implicit message imploring her never to love me. I explicitly detailed that I am a volatile individual, and that I do not navigate existence possessing the identical mindset as ordinary people. In that moment, her eyes welling with tears, she choked out a question to me: "Can you not manage to remain alive for my sake?"

It was a phrase I had never encountered before in my existence. Remaining alive for the sake of another. And during that specific chapter, it felt as though I could indeed endure existence, if only for her sake. Yet, she and I failed to advance unto matrimony. No matter how burning the sentiments with which two individuals love one another, preserving that love amidst a multitude of realistic dilemmas and friction is an exceptionally arduous feat. Indeed. Sentiment is sentiment, and reality is reality.

The dilemma manifests precisely in this manner: even if one entirely disregards the Three Bonds and Five Relations, if they amass capital effectively and integrate smoothly into the fabric of the world, they secure at the very least the funds required to support their parents. Conversely, if one navigates existence harboring grand dreams and visions like myself, those very ambitions occasionally strip away the dreams one desperately craved as payment when they run aground. Dreams demand a steep price. Youth. The time one could have spent alongside beloved individuals. The wounds inflicted upon them. Only after paying every unintended price that surfaces does one finally arrive at the absolute substance of what they desired. The substance of what was desired? Grand success? Beholding the alternate facets contained within that success, one repeats the tedious, sickening labors over and over again.

Beneath the banner of a general who has triumphed in warfare, the corpses of fallen allies are scattered in abundance. There is a saying that entrepreneurs achieve success only by draining and consuming the very lifeblood of their investors. If a price is exacted for absolutely all of this, the masses may envy that existence based upon the visible success and the conspicuous outcomes; yet when reflecting upon every consequence and price churning beneath the surface, I am brought to ponder whether it holds any true value. Will I navigate this life while continuing to pay such a price? Or will I live steering toward an alternate existence while paying a far slighter toll?

Jesus uttered the words: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden." I harbor an intense loathing for this world. I harbor an identical loathing for the divine. The system forged by the divine dictates that through the agony of those who labor and are heavy laden, a microscopic minority of individuals enjoy a splendor that appears entirely devoid of torment. To me, this world is closer to a torture chamber where no financial math or cosmic ledger could ever balance. If, despite it all, I have failed to snap the thread known as life, could it not be because the primal will of existence—birthed through the severe pangs of labor—remains encapsulated within me? Could it be that the indelible imprint of life, woven into my being as a consequence of existing as a human, is preserving this sickening existence? It is nothing more, and nothing less, than that.