Don’t turn away from your pain

Meanwhile

Don’t turn away from your pain

Published: 28 Jul. 2024, 19:52

KWON SUK-CHUN
The author is an adviser at Bae, Kim & Lee LLC.

It was last week. I met with a reporter after a long time, and the conversation deepened. He talked about the “shaken point” of the stories I wrote when I was a reporter. Honestly, I didn’t want to accept it, but I listened carefully as he certainly had a point.

After the conversation, I watched “Drive My Car” again. The movie is slow yet intense. Kafuku, a director and actor, witnesses his wife having an affair. Out of fear that everything may collapse, he does not confront her. When his wife suddenly passes away, he loses the chance to ask her about the affair forever.

At some point, the dam in his mind collapses in front of someone. “I should have been true to myself, but I ignored the truth,” he confesses. “Actually, I was deeply hurt to the point of going crazy. But that’s why I pretended that I didn’t see anything.”

It’s not easy to “get hurt properly.” We instinctively hate pain. That’s why we try not to acknowledge the pain though we know we are hurt. We want to overcome the situation by avoiding the truth. But we cannot get it over if we don’t face it.

Let’s not cover the wound with the cheap gauze of healing. Let’s not try to be saved by a few comforting words from others. You must stand in the ring clenching your teeth and fixing your mouth guard firmly. Rather than trying to hide your pain, you must squarely face it. Then, your pain becomes an important process to bring you to another dimension of life.

The movie tells us, “What’s more frightening than the truth is not knowing the truth.” I am trying to confront — and ruminate on — what the reporter meant by the “shaken point.” Whatever conclusions I may reach, I will surely be closer to the truth. That will serve as a refreshing signpost for the rest of my life.