The Stranger in the Photo
By Justin Kang, 18, New Jersey
It is August 24th, 2008. I am clad in a backwards tan cotton twill cap, a linen tank top, and a pair of striped green seersucker shorts. My quintessential summertime attire at home. My aunt is behind the camera. My mom and grandma are in the kitchen making dinner. My dad and uncles are watching the news on the TV in the living room. I can hear my younger uncle speaking in his deep and resonating voice that fills the room with its weight. I stand on the veranda, where I can see the lush green trees and savor the fresh afternoon breeze that cools the heat my body has accumulated after a day at the beach. Typical scenes of our yearly summer trip to the eastern coast of Korea. A pleasant escape from the traffic-ridden city of Seoul, where you can feel the heat of the concrete at the bottom of your shoes and there is ceaseless motion.
My family has gone to the same beach since my mother’s fifth grade summer break. She explains it was rather an impromptu trip. Her family had “discovered” the beach, before there were any fences, beach chairs, and small storefronts. She told me it was routine for my grandpa to swim in the ocean because he believed it washed away any lingering bad luck and negative emotions as if it were a spiritual cleansing. For me, it was the beach that I swam with my brother in and built sand castles. My older cousins would swim to the deeper depths of the ocean to collect sea shells and I would follow them. I would try to make myself look taller in the water that was too deep for me, tip-toeing on the cold sand, trying to seem just as big as my older relatives as if I had something to prove. I was always the youngest child in family gatherings. I had no responsibilities and always felt that I had no reason to think for myself.
Many years have passed and I now peer at the turn of young adulthood. My parents are older and my brother is moving out for his first job this summer. I unconsciously ponder my childhood: how it has influenced me, my conception of success, and my idea of fulfillment.
Young adults have reached a level of maturity where we have developed a particular perception about the world—political beliefs, a gauge of morality, and perhaps a set of guiding principles. We hold personal ambitions and an ideal vision of how the world should be, who we want to be, what we want generally. As our lives progress, we try to narrow this gap between ideal and reality. Our efforts are apparent in many ways. At the superficial level, the clothes we wear, our hairstyle, the type of bag we carry, and even the tone of our voice or the posture of our walk has been informed, to a certain degree, by our perception of what is “cool,” attractive, chic, and socially acceptable. On a more serious level, we want successful careers, a particular lifestyle, and all the other attributes of the person our parents will be proud of— wishes that become more urgent as we approach adulthood. It is this precise framework that has directed most people’s lives. We embrace the pursuit, the process.
For instance, in movies and literature, the protagonists tend to be flawed, troubled, or in pursuit of something. In The Great Gatsby, we cheer on Jay Gatsby, the boy born into poverty trying to win the love of his life. Not Tom Buchunan, the Yale man with generational wealth who plays polo in his free time. In Good Will Hunting, Will is a brilliant genius capable of outsmarting MIT professors, but he chooses to work as a janitor and live in the slums of Boston with his friends. There would be no plot if he simply decided to apply himself. What if everyone attained their objectives? What if everyone ceased to feel any physical discomfort and stress? What do you do if there is no gap between your idealized vision and reality? As philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once explained, “Life is like a pendulum that swings between pain and boredom.” When we are not consumed by a desire to achieve something, we are tormented by boredom. A perfect world is an orienting goal, but a disorienting reality. These are stifling thoughts.
The photo of my family in 2008 is strange to look at, for it was a long time ago. In another country. With a family that I don’t get to see as often as I did. At the same time, the person in the photo is no stranger to me. I not only see my childhood self, looking rather dazedly at the camera. I see my mother when she was just a young girl. I see my grandpa with his daughter and two sons. As our childhood recedes, I look at the photo and realize that joy comes from the capacity to reflect on pleasant moments. To contemplate sights and sounds, and embrace feelings that turn moments into memories. Amidst the perpetual motion of life, occasional turbulence, short lived excitement, and fatigue, it would be nice to find joy in where we are, and relish the peace of the moment. In any world, regardless if it is perfect and you have earned all your goals or not, these types of pleasures provide a durable and reliable source of joy.
I turned 18 this past year and have been reflecting on challenges and memories from my childhood. It led me to ask myself: where do I draw happiness from? This piece is my personal exploration of this question and a form of expressing gratitude to my family.
