[One Thousand Characters a Day] Lee Jeong-rim, I Will Begin in the Winter Mountains <2·End>

Editor's NoteAsia Economy provides daily 1000-character transcription content for the ‘Harumanbo Harucheonja’ newsletter readers. The transcription content is carefully selected according to daily and monthly themes from Eastern and Western classics, Korean literature, notable columns, and famous speeches. Today's content is the final part of the second installment of Lee Jeong-rim's (1986). Character count: 1000.

On the winter mountain, I move forward like an ascetic undertaking a rigorous journey. My legs are stiff from the cold, but since I cannot turn back, I climb the mountain. If I had intended not to ascend and to return, I should not have come to the mountain in the first place. Because I have the single goal of climbing, I can cut through the cold and keep walking. Even if the path is difficult and harsh, a journey with a goal is always joyful. Even if I try my best but fall short of the goal, the process of moving toward it is rewarding. Life is a process. As long as I am alive, I cannot see the end of that life.

As time goes by, that difficult path gradually becomes familiar. Just as the life of an ascetic, which is hard to endure, becomes an inexplicable joy to oneself, the regret of wanting to turn back at first changes into the satisfaction of having come. Those who cannot understand the heart of going to the mountain in winter do not comprehend the sublimation process where hardship can turn into joy. The winter mountain is like the strict discipline of a monastery. However, it is a high-level ascetic practice leading to reward and joy.

(Omitted)

I descend the winter mountain. Suddenly, when I look back while coming down, the mountain stands there as always. Only the people who climb it change. The mountain is just a mountain. Only the people who climb it want to give it much meaning. Because it is more eternal than humans, in front of it, one wants to contemplate the value of the finite.

A day begins from morning, and a year starts from the first month. But when I climb the winter mountain, I always begin again. The mountain embraces with a great heart the solemnity, the freshness, and the hope of the new year’s new morning and offers them to me. Also, the humility and beauty that one meets with a serious heart on the new year’s new morning are always newly awakened by the mountain. I want to greet the morning on the winter mountain. Facing the dazzlingly rising sun, I want to reconsider the meaning of my existence. Thus, I want to begin my new year on that majestic winter mountain.

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