Date: 2017-03-13
Obsession, empathy, and efforts put in to appreciate art
I have long been thinking whether or not it is okay to think of my work related activities as my hobby. I am clearly a helpless investment junky, and I am still not sure if this is healthy or not. This is because I must consider the full range of possibilities, and the possibility of a catastrophic failure in my own investment should certainly be considered, and I would prefer not to lose both my work and hobby at the same time. Then, after realizing how things have changed in the way I appreciate Korean media contents, I felt little sad today.
I enjoy listening to just one song over and over again in different points of time. Often, these songs become the medium of my memory. When I listen to Dung Beetle, I feel the joy and warmth at my wedding, and the ironic situation that shortly followed; when I listen to Bach's Ich Habe Genug, I think of my good old Stratton Hall with two spacious walk-in closet; when I listen to Seong Shigyeong's Heejae, I think of glittery and calm body of water in sunny Venice and Verona; Flower's Endless for Jeongsoo's slaughter of the song; Taeyeon's If for a nostalgic high school gathering at Apgujeong; Na Huna's Mushiro for the dinner shows and my grandparents; Metallica's Nothing Else Matters for Julien and Paco; K-Ci and Jojo's Tell Me It's Real for philosophy classes and Romance of The Three Kingdoms; Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 for my 30th birthday and Rogoff; Yuhki Kuramoto's Meditation for beautiful Dent du Midi; Damien Rice's Cannonball for a tearful train ride; Shiina Ringo's Tsumi to Batsu for the low affordability of Japanese taxis; Big Bang's Blue and B.O.B's Airplane for a clam soup I ended up drinking in Tokyo due to lack of cash; The Cure's Friday I'm In Love for the night before my enlistment for the military service and Seunghyeon's eccentric sense of humor; La Oreja de Van Gogh's La Playa for an epic ride from Barcelona to Leysin with Guillermo, Donghoon, and Daniel; Maroon 5's She Will Be Loved for a pickpocket and a long train ride from Prague to Warsaw; and so many more.
Today, I searched for 'new songs' and played them on a Korean website. As I was listening, I started thinking about G Dragon's military service matters, SM and YG's pros and cons in their artist selection and grooming process, Descendants of The Sun (and how popular and irritating that show was), Dalian Wanda's overseas acquisitions, Korea's very competitive plastic surgery industry, Shin Jeonghwan's Korean style flavored ice flake dessert shop in Singapore, Yu Jaeseok's lasting dominance as a talk show host, exceptional degree of vanity and focus on the look and low financial literacy of many of my Korean acquaintances, Chanel and Hermes's brand management, Netflix's sudden announcement of global coverage and Carl Icahn's investment, Terrace House, and spine-chilling degree of global integration of contents market.
Only after few hours, I realized that the songs I listened to today wouldn't be the medium of any precious memory. I probably will not remember the color, texture, and scent of the fruity Darjeeling tea I have been drinking, even though I have been really loving it; I will also forget how I poked a fish seller auntie at the wet market and how she complained about me to the crowd in Cantonese, before giving me a small discount. Maybe she secretly felt sorry for embarrassing me. Many amusing memories to be lost.
Because I tend to rely on first-hand experience for the study of empathy, I would prefer to keep music as an effective medium of memory. Empathy is a key component of my investment process, so losing any little bits of memory's medium beats the purpose of a higher order. Also, I treasure the experience itself: sitting and pondering what I have done and whatever funny things happened in the past. Composure is key to happiness, and occasionally laughing at something incorruptible helps composure.
Initially, teachers in meditation teach the students to focus on one topic, then on nothing. Ever since I moved to Hong Kong, my asthma worsened and coughing seems to have affected my breathing. This may have something to do with my failure in focusing on one topic: the pace of breathing. Hopefully, I adapt soon.
Because I believe it is a virtue to encourage people to think independently, I identify thinking about individually varied appreciation process of art a productive activity. I tend to think that audiences' appreciation process is half the art. The part art really appeals to me is its pursuit of perfection that embraces countless audiences' varied tastes, and an attainment of perfection seems possible only in the subjective domain. How artists set the boundary of perfection teaches me how much to diversify, and also how deep I should understand a subject, because there always is more to learn and a reasonable thing to do is setting the boundary of where to stop for the sake of efficiency, given the limited resources.
My humbling conclusion is: I'm excited to listen to MC Mong's new songs!!!! I suppose I have some reasons to be still hopeful about myself. :)