Saturday was my real birthday celebration. I spent all afternoon with Grace, shopping for some winter shoes (which I didn't find and ended up having to buy online for twice what they're worth), eating, just hanging out in Seoul. After that she met a friend and I went back to Jukjeon and watched a movie with Joy (the girl I'm trying to date). The choices were Fame and District 9. I told her I knew nothing about either and didn't care. She didn't want to make the decision so I chose District 9 since it started earlier and we both had to be up early. This was on the phone, too, so I couldn't even look at the pictures of the movies. She did tell me District 9 was Peter Jackson, so I got excited, but then saw that he only produced it, not directed it. Anyway, I really enjoyed it because it was a very different alien movie, and I would totally review it right here if it were the right place to do so. She did not like it at all. It was much too violent for her.
About Joy. I met her 3 weeks ago with her church group on a Saturday. I then spent some time with her the next day, mostly at church or with church people. Then, that next Saturday (one week ago) she was at church from 9am to I think midnight. (You may be sensing a pattern). Sunday I was hungover and didn't wake until 4pm, but did manage to surprise her by showing up at the cafe she was at around 10pm. She had been in church until then. Saturday she was at church from 3pm-8pm, and yesterday she was at church from 8am-8pm, give-or-take. She is what I would call a "super church-girl."
Since I met her at church and all that, she probably assumes (or assumed) that I was the same way. That thought didn't occur to me until last week when I texted her to tell her I wouldn't be going to church. I was going to say I was sick, but then realized that if I said that she'd feel concerned and sorry, but if I were hungover she probably wouldn't, so I told her the truth expecting her to be repelled and to judge me. She didn't. I was pleasantly surprised and thought maybe there was some hope there.
We had an almost-date Saturday night at the movies, and afterwards I told her I wouldn't be at church the next day because I was going with my friend Heather to Palmi Island (see pictures here). She said that I hadn't been to church the previous week so I had to go that week. I began to lose hope that she would leave me be, and I never had much hope in explaining to her my reasons because I have enough difficulty with that with fluent speakers, let alone someone of lesser English abilities.
I then began to examine what I was doing. I wanted this relationship with a girl whose culture, language, and religious practice I did not share. In all likelihood I will be leaving in a little over 4 months, and it would not be good for either of us. But Joy made me happy. I began to question why, and the answer was simple; I was looking for happiness because I had lost it. When, where, and why I lost happiness I can't quite tell. I am inclined to say it was sometime since I moved to Korea, though it's just as likely that the move simply made it more obvious.
I realized that I've been looking for happiness in people. I look at every girl that walks past me in hopes that our eyes will meet and I will see in them some acknowledgement that I am attractive. I look at men and think to myself that the girls around us find me more attractive because I'm foreign and exotic. I try very hard to be invited to dinner with my coworkers. There are other examples, I am sure, but no more that quickly come to mind. It is all quite pathetic.
I have always found happiness in other people: in their presence, in their happiness, in their approval, in their laughter. Whether this is good or bad I have not yet analyzed, but the point is that I have never looked for happiness in others, I had always had it. Since I have moved here, however, I have had no one else to be with, to find affirmation in, to witness their pure happiness. I have been lonely: in spirit, in person, and in mind. This loneliness has only grown. At first it was my goal to live without internet in my house. This quickly fell because I "needed" it to call friends and family more conveniently. It was my goal to live without a cell phone, but I "needed" it to jump-start a social life here (it hasn't done too much good). I had not intended to buy an Xbox, but I "needed" it to stay in contact with the few friends I can on there. It was my goal not to accumulate things while here, but I "needed" a bike so I could have freedom of mobility. I bought my ebook reader to read books, sure, but I realized once I bought it that I was happier because while I was reading I wasn't living reality, where I was lonely.
I am not entirely sure of the cure. Of course people want to say that God is the answer, and depending upon what is meant I am likely to agree. But I want to know why I was happy before I came here. Was I really happy, or just not noticing that I wasn't because I had so many people around me? I believe the Christian life is made up of three relationships: our relationship to God, our relationship with others, and our relationship with ourselves. Our relationship with God might be broken down into communication (prayer) and obedience, which is borne out in our relationship with ourselves and others. This may or may not be true or helpful, but it is as I've come to see it. If it's true, then our relationship with others is very important. Humans are social creatures and need others, but the extant to which we need them, and who we need, are our sins. I believe I have desired people too much, and desired God and myself too little.
Believing as I do that going into a building that some call a "church" is not necessary to the Christian life, and that our emphasis on reading the Bible is ill-placed because not until the last 100-150 years have the Western public been able to easily and readily own their own Bible (not that it shouldn't be read, but it needn't be memorized, and time is much better spent in "doing"), my emphasis is on people (in all manner) and prayer, and in these I hope to please our God. And in these, I know I have not. But you see how I can so easily go from the idea of pleasing Him with my relationships with others, to pleasing myself with my relationships with others. And the neglecting of prayer is as simple as not doing it, and "none" are the wiser.
It is this tightrope that I thought I was so deftly walking, and have realized that I was not walking at all, but thrashing around on the ground some 30 feet below the rope with a broken neck, only furthering my injuring by my continual movement.
Some of you may be curious about Joy. So am I. I do not know what is going to happen. We are still on good terms, she is aware of none of these thoughts, and she is probably just thinking that I should've gone to church but didn't, oh well.
As a reminder, go here for the pictures of Palmi Island.
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