[Joseonggwan's Global Humanities Journey] Memento Mori, Steve Jobs' Life Motto

I once wrote a will long ago. It was the night before a two-week overseas business trip. Why did I decide to write a will then? It wasn’t like I was going to a war zone as a war correspondent. Around that time, ‘trying to write a will’ was a trend, I suppose.

I cried my eyes out while writing the will. Thinking that I would die in a few days, my whole life felt full of regrets and gratitude. I never imagined I would sob uncontrollably while writing a will. The world looked different. Every minute and second felt precious.

A friend who spent a week in a hospital room taking care of his wife sent me this KakaoTalk message. An eighty-year-old man burst into tears when the doctor diagnosed him with cancer. Even though eighty is the average life expectancy for men, seeing an old man overwhelmed by the fear of death and wailing made me think a lot.

People in the world are divided into two types: those who believe in the existence of the soul and those who do not. The soul is an invention humanity created to resist the fear of death. Humans created the soul to cope with the fear of death, and that alone was not enough, so they pursue a meaningful life.

Steve Jobs in 2010.
[Photo source= Wikipedia]

Throughout history and across cultures, songs and poetry about the soul abound. Take the song ‘Ul Mite Seon Bongseonhwa-ya’ (Balsam Flower Standing Under the Rain) with lyrics by Kim Hyeong-jun and music by Hong Nan-pa. Let’s listen to the third verse of this song.

‘Though your form disappears in the cold north wind and snow,

Your soul, dreaming peaceful dreams, still exists,

In the bright spring breeze, I hope for your reincarnation.’

Form, soul, reincarnation. The third verse emphasizes that ‘humans do not truly die even after death.’

Possession (憑依) and reincarnation (還生).

Possession and reincarnation are themes frequently borrowed in movies and dramas. From the movie ‘Ghost’ to the TV drama ‘Goblin.’ Why did viewers become so enthusiastic about the drama ‘The Youngest Son of a Chaebol Family’? Isn’t it because life feels fleeting and unbearably light?

Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ completed over 60 years, is a difficult book for anyone to read. ‘Faust’ is a story about death and the soul. It is a work concerning the issue of salvation.

In Jahamun Hill in Jongno-gu, Seoul, there is the Yun Dong-ju Literature Museum. Above the museum is the ‘Poet’s Hill,’ where soil brought from Manchuria’s Yongjeong, where he rests, is buried.

People are born from soil and return to soil. In all civilizations, soil is believed to be imbued with the human soul. Therefore, the act of keeping soil brought from one’s hometown by a deceased person is quite solemn.

When Chopin left Warsaw, his friends gave him soil from his hometown in a small glass bottle, telling him not to forget his hometown. Chopin cherished this bottle until his death. Mr. Shim Il-hwi, the 15th generation Shim Soo-gwan master active in Japan, visited Korea last year and went to the grave of his father Shim Dang-gil in Gimpo to perform ancestral rites. Shim Dang-gil was a Korean potter taken as a prisoner to Japan during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592?1598). The 15th generation Shim Soo-gwan took soil from the Gimpo grave to Japan and sprinkled it on Shim Dang-gil’s grave.

Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ created the character Scrooge, a cold-blooded man without pity or tears. However, surprisingly, readers often forget the ending where Scrooge reforms. What changed Scrooge was witnessing his own death. He realized that he himself was the object of ridicule rather than sorrow.

Q-Rock's artwork 'Memento Mori' exhibited at Gallery Mari.
Photo by Seonggwan Jo

At the beginning of the year, there was an exhibition called ‘Beyond Genre I’ at Gallery Mari in Sinmunno, Seoul. The artist ‘Q. Rock,’ who exhibited at this art show, depicted objects contained in transparent vinyl bags with hyperrealism. Among the exhibited works, the one that caught the eye was ‘Memento Mori.’ Heart-shaped balloons were placed in a transparent vinyl bag like a bouquet. Why was it called Memento Mori? Next to it was a Latin phrase, as explained in the painting description. It is a quote from Erasmus’s ‘Praise of Folly.’

‘But grant me the following three gods. I now see the following gods.’

There is an art term called ‘Vanitas still life.’ It is a genre of still life painting that originated in the Netherlands. Vanitas means ‘vanity’ or ‘emptiness’ in Latin. The English word Vanity comes from this. The main objects in Vanitas still life paintings are skulls. Besides skulls, flowers, candles, fruits, and hourglasses often appear in Vanitas still life paintings. Contemporary painters of the time painted Vanitas still lifes. Among them, ‘Table with Blackberry Pie’ and ‘Table with Dessert’ are famous.

Yan Brueghel the Elder's work 'Blue Vase with a Bouquet of Flowers'. The fallen petals symbolize memento mori.
[Photo by Seonggwan Jo]

Andy Warhol (1928?1987), the emperor of pop art, also left works on the theme of Memento Mori. From 1976, he produced silk-screen works titled ‘Skull’ using skulls. In 1977, he went further and took a photo with a skull placed on his head. A ‘self-portrait with a skull on top’! Who else but Andy Warhol would have such a daring imagination?

The highlight of a trip to Prague, Czech Republic, is Prague Castle. To visit the Golden Lane of Prague Castle and then go down to the village below the castle, you have to descend winding stairs. About halfway down, an unexpected sculpture on the dirt floor catches travelers’ attention. It depicts a skull pressing down on the back of a man lying face down.

'A skull riding on a man's back' displayed below Prague Castle.
Photo by Seonggwan Jo

Koreans in the Confucian civilization tend to avoid death. This is decisively different from the Christian civilization that talks about the afterlife. There is abundant evidence of this. We regard cemeteries and cremation facilities as scary and unpleasant places, disparaging them as undesirable facilities. Therefore, in cities, we try hard to place them as far away and out of sight as possible.

In Christian civilizations, cemeteries stand firmly in the middle of villages on prime land. In Christian funerals, it is rare to see mourners wailing loudly. The same goes for Japanese people. They only sob quietly. Japanese also place cemeteries in the middle of towns or city centers. The Tokyo Joshi-gaya Reien Cemetery, where Natsume Soseki rests, is surrounded by residential areas. The cemetery in Berlin where Marlene Dietrich, beloved by Germany, rests is adjacent to an elementary school separated by a wall.

Natsume Soseki is resting at the 'Joshigaya Reien Cemetery' in Tokyo. High-rise apartments overlook the cemetery.
[Photo by Seonggwan Cho]

In Korean language life, death is normalized as a form of exaggeration. We often talk about death casually. Expressions like ‘I’m so hungry I could die,’ ‘I’m so thirsty I could die,’ or ‘I miss you so much I could die’ are common. ‘Can’t endure’ is used as ‘dying.’ Yet, death remains taboo in everyday life.

The animation I have watched many times is ‘CoCo.’ ‘CoCo’ is an animation that directly deals with the world of the dead. Miguel, a boy who dreams of becoming a musician, touches the guitar of a legendary singer and enters the ‘Land of the Dead.’ Throughout the movie, skeletons fill the screen. The message of CoCo is that life and death are closely connected.

What philosophy and thought do Koreans share? Long ago, I had a conversation with a university professor on this topic. Wait, what was it again? It’s hard to answer readily. Under what philosophy of life do Koreans live their given lives? Koreans generally lack philosophy and thought. It is empty like bamboo stalks. That space is dominated by materialism.

Sigmund Freud praised ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ as the greatest novel in human history. ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ shows how far humans can fall when they abandon conscience. A lawyer who once served as a special prosecutor was found to have shamelessly committed all sorts of ugly deeds behind the scenes, and a reform committee chairman threw human decency away like trash in front of money. Dostoevsky, a figure from 140 years ago, was right.

John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Rockefeller Foundation, committed fraud and corruption without blinking an eye to make money. He was the embodiment of evil. When he submitted the foundation’s establishment application in 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt, who knew his record well, famously said:

“No matter what good deeds he does, he cannot repay the evil he committed to amass his fortune.”

He awakened to philanthropy in 1894 at age 55. After being told by a doctor he had less than a year to live, he entered a hospital for a final checkup. As he walked gloomily through the hospital lobby, a framed phrase on the wall caught his eye.

‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

This phrase, which would not have caught his attention when healthy, struck his heart. From then on, Rockefeller’s outlook on life began to change. Thirteen years later, the Rockefeller Foundation was launched. The Rockefeller Foundation supported unknown Korean artists in the 1960s. It was also the place that helped Nam June Paik settle early in New York after passing through Germany and Japan.

There is no one more fearless in the world than a triumphant general. The Latin phrase ‘Memento Mori’ originates from the Roman triumphal parade. Cheers, applause, fanfare... At the very end of the celebratory procession stands a group of public slaves. They chant ‘Memento Mori’ as a refrain while marching. It is a tradition to warn the triumphant general against falling into arrogance.

Steve Jobs’ life motto was also ‘Memento Mori.’ Until he was 50, he used to ask himself every morning in front of the mirror, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do now?” In the face of death, only truly important things remain.

memento mori

Author and Genius Researcher Jo Seong-gwan

Operator of ‘Genius Table,’ former editor-in-chief of Weekly Chosun

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