[Lee Jong-gil's Autumn Return] Valley of Life, When Lost, Take Out the Compass of Pain

David Brooks' "The Second Mountain" Highlights Human Life Growing Through Crisis
Emphasizes 'Relationalism' Coexisting with Others Beyond the Ambitious 'First Mountain'

George Orwell (1903?1950), the author of the novels Animal Farm and 1984, decided to become a writer at the age of 25. After graduating from Eton College, he went to British colonial Burma, where he served as a British imperial police officer for five years. After work, he would just laze around at home. Although conscious of writing, he deliberately avoided it.

He reflected in his essay "Why I Write" as follows: "I lived with the awareness that my true nature was enraged, and that someday I would eventually settle down and write books."

David Brooks’ book The Second Mountain discusses the attitude toward life that humans reestablish through periods of suffering. Everyone experiences times of pain. Some people become overly fearful and shrink back prematurely. They live their entire lives without healing their sorrow. Others fully accept their pain. They look at the familiar with new eyes and use suffering as an opportunity for self-discovery and growth.

The author points to the latter as the right direction. To rise again after pain, one’s attitude toward life must fundamentally change on both personal and social levels. He emphasizes that a greater transformation is needed, with the cultural paradigm’s center of gravity shifting from individualism?the first mountain?to relationalism?the second mountain.

The second mountain is not the opposite of the first mountain. It is another journey that continues from the first mountain. However, the way of climbing is completely different.

"The first mountain is conquered. ‘I’ conquer this mountain. I identify the summit from afar and climb toward it with all my might. But the second mountain is different. The second mountain conquers ‘me.’ I surrender to a certain calling. And in response to that calling, I do everything necessary to solve some injustice or problem before me. On the first mountain, I approach with ambition and strategy, exercising independence, but on the second mountain, I prioritize human relationships, intimacy, and maintain an unwavering attitude."

Orwell, who became a writer late, did not just fidget with a pen in his room. He believed there were three essential things he had to do. First, live among the poor.

Orwell went to slums and experienced extreme poverty. He thought the contradiction of socialist friends promising liberation while not actually engaging with the poor was a major problem. He walked all over England and stayed in charitable lodging houses. He even worked 13-hour days washing dishes in a French restaurant.

Thanks to his rich experiences, he was able to accurately grasp the problems of the working class. After publishing The Road to Wigan Pier, which depicted the poor lives of northern English workers, he released Down and Out in Paris and London, which recorded his experiences living at the bottom.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Orwell volunteered to fight against fascism. While serving in the militia of the Communist Party’s Unified Workers’ Party, he became convinced that the forces obstructing the Spanish revolution were actually the leftists. Escaping communist attacks, he fled to France and expressed his disillusionment with ideology in Homage to Catalonia.

Second, establish a new style of writing. Orwell wanted to make nonfiction into a literary form. So he used allegory and became a master at making political arguments. For example, "shooting an elephant" symbolized the wrongs of British imperialism.

The process was an exhausting struggle. "It is like fighting a painful disease and a long battle. It can never be done without being forcibly pushed from behind by a demon that cannot be resisted or understood." Orwell thought, like the American-born poet T. S. Eliot (1888?1965), that the attitude of good writing is to constantly kill one’s own personality. He believed one must suppress oneself so that the reader can directly engage with the described content.

Third, absolute honesty. Orwell looked at reality as it was and, as French novelist Albert Camus (1913?1960) said, learned "that what is right can be defeated, that force can break the spirit, and that sometimes courage receives no reward." He worked hard to expose lies or focus people’s attention on actual facts. "Every serious sentence I wrote since 1936 was, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and in favor of democratic socialism."

After returning from Spain, Orwell was completely changed. He accepted his calling. He experienced a moment of purification realizing why he existed in this world and that he must relentlessly carry out the mission given to him. Through writing, he expressed anger at all injustice and emitted a cold passion.

The Second Mountain sees such a calling as the core driving force for climbing the second mountain. Ultimately, the climb is a process of self-discovery and growth. By shedding the old self, one meets a new self. The result is growth, not success; spiritual joy, not material happiness. It is the journey from the valley of anguish, through the desert’s purification, to the summit of insight.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.