Reflective Writing and Poetic Musing by Condemiang + Stories About the World

This gentleman was the one who got me interested in sexuality from an early age.  Back in 9th grade, I was constantly holed up in the school library, utterly absorbed in his brilliant case studies on psychotherapeutic treatments using association techniques. A truly great man. He argued that most psychological problems stem from sexual issues.  And honestly, given the atmosphere of Victorian Europe where women were forced into extreme modesty, it seems quite reasonable—almost historically empirical—to suppose that such issues arose from women’s repressed sexual freedom. Or at least, that’s the kind of conclusion I think I might be inclined to possibly agree with. Maybe. But the "woman problem" isn’t just a women’s issue.  Problems of a particular class don’t stay confined to that class.  Society is an organism—when one part breaks down, the effects ripple across the whole.  Ignore it like it’s none of your business, and you’ll end up with a metaphorical smack in...

Born in Prague, in the Kingdom of Bohemia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was mainly active in Germany and died in Switzerland. His full name was “René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke.” It sounds like one of those absurdly long, tongue-twisting names no one could possibly remember. With a name this long, there can’t possibly be another person on Earth with the same one. When his older sister Maria died at an early age, his mother, yearning for her daughter, shoved ‘Maria’ into Rilke’s name even though he was a boy. He fell head over heels for Lou Salomé, a Russian-born writer and psychoanalyst who was fourteen years older than him, and followed her around like a little duckling. Most likely a case of maternal love deficiency. Even when Lou Salomé entered a marriage that was marriage in name only, he went so far as to visit her home and begged to live with her—a pure-hearted romantic? A stalker? Mentally unstable? It’s said that Salomé was the one who told h...

  I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched these performances by now. To be honest, I was never someone deeply immersed in classical music—not in the past, and not even now. But ever since I encountered this pianist’s performance, something in me began to shift. Even when the pieces weren’t immediately moving or familiar to me, I found myself overcome with emotion, shedding tears more than once while listening to music I once thought inaccessible. And I know—this emotion I feel is, in part, shaped by the visual stimulation of the videos, by the contagious admiration expressed by others, and even by my own self-image, swept up in that shared appreciation. Yet despite all that, his playing—so natural and expressive, so clearly flawless even to someone like me—is undeniably extraordinary. The power and passion, the response from the orchestra and the audience… it’s impossible not to recognize the greatness of these performances. Many of the works he plays are among the most icon...

Life may appear to be an endless succession of events, but in truth, it is a garment woven from people. The true substance of our lives lies not in the events themselves, but in the people within them.   Each person is a strand of yarn, and it is through the knitting of relationships that these strands are bound together. Life, then, is a garment crafted from countless human threads. While I may choose which garment to wear, its texture and color depend entirely on the people who comprise it. We often believe our present selves are the result of our own thoughts and choices. But that is merely the outcome of our selections—not the whole of who we are. The more friction and abrasion there is, the more the fabric wears thin, and sometimes, it tears altogether. Yet this garment shields what we wish to conceal, and it protects us from the cold and harsh winds of the world.  One who possesses many garments well-suited to the seasons of life is truly someone who has lived fully. K...

My Favourite Friends Software Light is both illumination and the very source of distortion and blindness to us. Don’t ask me why—please. Explaining it is so complicated that I’d end up foaming at the mouth and spitting as I talk. But if you really insist, we’d better do it over a drink—at least the spit from an alcohol-disinfected mouth would be somewhat safer. It was through Rainer Maria Rilke that I first discovered metaphor—those quiet bridges between the visible and the invisible. From that moment, I stepped gently but irrevocably into the realms of literature, history, and philosophy. I chose the sciences, yes, and spent the next 38 years shouldering the consequences of that decision. But I never wonder if the other path would have been better. I believe the person I’ve become is the best possible result of the road I walked. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky. Most of what I longed for came to me. And the things I didn’t attain? Perhaps they were never what I truly desired in the ...

One winter night, I wondered if the aurora that had supposedly appeared a few days earlier might be fluttering faintly in the sky. I decided to step out into the backyard. I hadn't even opened the door yet, but I could already sense the persistence of the winter wind humming loudly. I parted the blinds and gently slid open the patio door. The moment I did, the cold-laden wind surged in as if it had been waiting. The two cats that had been trailing me flinched and froze in their tracks, twitching their noses, alternating their gaze between the dark backyard and my face. Even in this loudly frigid night, their desire to go outside remained undiminished. I quickly stepped out onto the deck and shut the door behind me. The two cats stood motionless behind the glass, wearing their usual expression—one that seemed to say they couldn’t quite accept being shut out again. Soon, they would each settle into the plush fur rug on the bench, limbs stretching with drowsy ease. Modified image of...

Yeonwoo had a peculiar compulsion—one that gripped him every time he tried to buy clothes. He could never quite shake it off. Each time, the pressure would mount until, in the end, he surrendered to it, doing exactly what that quiet obsession demanded. In his childhood, Yeonwoo’s parents ran a large clothing store in the bustling heart of town. It was more like a department store of its time, offering everything from children’s wear and men’s and women’s fashion to accessories, sundries, cigarettes, and even intercity bus tickets. The shop was big, and so was its staff—six or seven people working at once. Those who weren’t married lived in the residential quarters behind the store, known as the anjip, making the place feel like a giant extended family. Oddly enough, Yeonwoo—the eldest son of such a fine establishment—insisted on wearing old clothes. His mother, the matriarch of this upscale store, would argue and plead with him, often at her wit’s end. She couldn’t stand the sight of h...

“I know what you mean—even if you don’t say it.” “You may say it that way, but I understand what’s really in your heart.” There was a time when this kind of communication held great appeal for us. Even if someone’s words came across as curt or awkward, we tried to read between the lines, to sense the warmth behind them, and accept it. A complaint muttered under one’s breath might still be steeped in affection, and we would embrace that unspoken care—recognizing the dissonance between tone and heart as a uniquely human exchange. But today, anything less than warmly spoken or emotionally affirming is seldom welcomed. Even if a voice carries love, concern, or comfort, we often fail to recognize it. Rather than tuning in with emotional sensitivity, we build defenses—screening out anything that might bruise us and turning our backs to ambiguity. We now live in a world where so much must be processed in such little time. We are too busy parsing the literal meaning of things to sense what lie...

This year, “Autumn” left a little later than usual. Following behind, “Winter” arrived with a feisty temperament, sprinkling snow throughout last week. It wasn’t heavy, more like a teasing flurry—until Saturday the 24th, when it poured down all at once, as if Winter were making a grand entrance. The leaves on the fence trees were unusually persistent this year. Perhaps due to Autumn’s late departure, they seemed caught off guard by Winter’s sudden greeting. It wasn’t just the fence trees—other trees clustered around the neighborhood were the same. "The leaves hadn’t fully fallen yet."   Last Christmas, I had strung LED lights around the eaves of our house. Something about that season always lifts my heart. My wife and I had hung them together, hoping to bring a bit of comfort to close the bleak, oil-crash-stricken year of 2019. The lights stayed up well into February 2020. Joseph, our neighbor across the street, passed away in March 2018. This past March marked his second...

When people think of the violin, they often picture Niccolò Paganini (born 1782). And when it comes to Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678–1741), many Koreans may recall the ski resort in Hongcheon named after him or his iconic violin concertos 1 , The Four Seasons . But as for me, when it comes to the violin, my unequivocal choice is Vivaldi. One might even say he feels more “Bach-like” than Johann Sebastian Bach himself. Vivaldi was born in 1678, seven years before Bach’s birth in 1685. If one were to name three composers who truly stirred the waters of Baroque music, it would undoubtedly be Vivaldi, Bach, and George Frideric Handel. It is not that Vivaldi’s music feels like Bach’s—but rather, Bach’s music resonates with the spirit of Vivaldi. Bach deeply admired Vivaldi and loved his compositions. He even arranged many of Vivaldi’s string concertos for keyboard instruments, performing them widely. Thanks to this, Vivaldi’s music became more widely known and gained greater fame. Vivaldi’...

Washing My Hair and Showering with Just Water It’s been nearly five weeks since I tossed out the shampoo and started washing my hair with only water. My eldest son began doing this around March—washing his hair with water only—and by early September, after about six months, I decided to follow suit. I sniffed his hair out of curiosity, but it didn’t smell unpleasant. I wanted to test it for myself. According to him, the beginning feels sticky and uncomfortable, but the effects become noticeable over time. Those effects, he said, include the natural protective oil layer of the scalp being maintained, significantly reducing dryness-related dandruff, itchiness, and even hair loss. For the first three to four weeks, I didn’t feel clean at all after washing. My hair felt sticky and clumped together due to oiliness, and I wasn’t sure if the odor was truly gone. But once it dried, it sort of felt like I had washed it. That gave me enough reason to push through. My towel, after drying my h...

A Boy with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever / The Link Between Microbes and the Brain /  Gut Microbes and Memory /  Cognitive and Physiological Impact of Microbes /  Gut Microbes and Behavior /  Neurotransmitters Produced by Bacteria /  Microbiota, Antibiotics, and Autism /  Microbiota and Human Health A few days ago, my eldest child shared a highly interesting YouTube video titled “How the Gut Microbe Affects the Brain and Mind,” published by the channel What I've Learned. (It was posted on February 19, 2018, and runs for 13 minutes and 22 seconds.) It felt too valuable to watch alone, so I made time to summarize it. I’ve long suspected that certain microorganisms might influence not only the human body but also our mental and emotional states. I do not mean in the general sense of psychological damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but rather in the more direct form of microbes affecting the brain and mind. After watching this video, that idea feel...