One Day I Will Sit Alone in a Dim Tavern

"My daughter has just begun her first menstruation.

I can no longer hold her in my arms.
Life has become unbearable.
A life that longs to collapse on the spot,
like a garment slipping from a hanger.
What, after all, could be more commonplace than sorrow?
And so, one day, I will sit alone in a dim tavern."
— From Hwang Ji-woo's One Day I Will Sit in a Dim Tavern

"It is a self-portrait of the '475 Generation'—those in their forties, born in the 1950s and educated in the 1970s—who barely survived the turmoil of Korea's IMF crisis in the late 1990s.
Long past ten o'clock at night, in a Korean-town computer academy, middle-aged men with graying hair sit before their monitors, striking the keyboards with awkward determination.
Caught between the Internet generation in their thirties and the established generation in their fifties, they were the last generation raised on the abacus and the first generation forced to learn computers.
The sight of those forty-somethings is enough to bring tears to one's eyes."
— From Ki Jun Kwon's column News Essay

That 475 Generation has now entered its seventies.

Just when they thought they had finally overcome the barrier of computers, another great tide has arrived—artificial intelligence.

If they do not learn, they fall behind.
If they do not adapt, they become strangers in the world around them.

Back then, they persevered for their families and fought to hold on to their place in life.
Today, they wrestle once again with an unfamiliar world, this time simply to avoid being left alone in loneliness.

It is a season that brings to mind Hwang Ji-woo's Dim Tavern.

Reflection of the Day

★ As long as we do not lose the desire to learn,
we will always remain worthy of living in the next age. ★

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[www.DawnLightLetter.com] 새벽 빛 편지

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