Kim Seung-jong's Literary Musings 144 'When One Person Gets Drunk, Another Gets Less Drunk'

You who suffer

Suffering is ours

You who grieve

Grief is ours

Then what more could you wish for

On this path we walk together

- "Suffering Is Yours" / Woo Young-chang

Your "suffering is yours" alone is not, but also mine—these are confessions in which the speaker consoles a friend by expressing his sentiments regarding friendship. One might dismiss it as felicitious words heard somewhere, maintaining respectful distance. Yet if we were to face sorrow or suffering from something and undertake its overcome alone with equanimity, that would indeed be most desirable. But if a friend were to console us as above during such times, what would our heart feel? Would it not be light piercing through dark stone?

Not only joy and delight, but "suffering" and "grief" are also "ours" and the very "path" of "life" itself, so the implication that "we" should rather affirm that "path" offers fresh consolation. What matters is that "we" must "walk together" on that "path," and the confirmation and reminder that we are already "walking together." And the ensuing "Then what more could you wish for"...

In fact, "Then what more could you wish for," which represents the final statement of this poem, might sound like dogmatism or self-righteousness and could feel burdensome. Yet this message, by recalling or anticipating that this consolation is not only for this poem's "you" but what we ourselves have also once expressed to some grieving or suffering friend like the speaker, would allow the "you" to make it the center of reconstructing one's heart.

The following poem in the same collection appears to be one of the related works written after the above poem, and it would be good to read it as a supplement, with concrete aspects of friendship omitted in the above poem now appearing.

When my friend comes

What I was doing becomes unhurried

When my friend comes

He becomes a man of leisure

And goes to drink

The tavern on credit is full of liquor

When one person gets drunk, another gets less drunk

Wandering from this tavern to that

Coming home late at night

His wife doesn't even look at him

It's all like that, what can you do

He forgets all worldly matters and falls asleep

- "Friend"

No matter how busy, when a friend comes, he suddenly "becomes a man of leisure" and does not hesitate to make a pilgrimage through "taverns on credit" "full of liquor," returning home only "late at night." The speaker merely observes, but we cannot.

This situation inevitably calls to mind one of the few instances in which Confucius, who controlled his emotions well, unwittingly admitted his heightened feelings: "Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters (有朋自遠方來, 不亦樂乎: Analects, "Learning the Beginning"), which recalls his refined sentiment. While we cannot say the speaker has been impressed by this noble precedent and made it his doctrine to practice, we can say that its ancient lineage has been unknowingly continued.

Moreover, friendship is a universal sentiment transcending time and space, and its absence in our lives is a value we cannot endure. Do we not live in the so-called secular marketplace, finding it difficult to survive on affection between parents, siblings, lovers, and spouses alone? Furthermore, the virtues of friendship and friendship itself always have trust as their foundation. It is not new that sages have long esteemed it as a precious value that mutually elevates one's relations, character, undertakings, and aspirations in human life, presenting it as one of the Five Relationships. Today, while other items are simply disregarded, conditioned, narrowed in scope, or have faded in luster, "among friends there is trust" remains a steadfast indicator.

We come to pity the "wife" who turns away entirely from the husband who, after gauging his own related state, glosses over matters as before with "It's all like that, what can you do"—yet we will envy the "he" who sleeps "forgetting all worldly matters," undisturbed by conflict and cold war with his "wife." Rather, becoming quite satisfied without reserve in the lingering resonance of friendship—the aspect of him "forgetting all worldly matters and sleeping."

The following poem too is a work by the same poet published in the same collection, dealing with friendship with a friend, and must be read as it corresponds to the conclusion of the above.

I do not visit your grave

There are only bones and hair

And fingernails and toenails

Even when memorial day comes

I do not visit your grave

Wherever I go

At whatever hour

You do not release me

Hating you

I do not visit your grave

- "Widow"

The speaker, having taken on the role of "widow," speaks with firm but stronger lingering affection. Statements that seem not to be ironic yet could be ironic. At last, should our departed friend in this world without us grieve us as the speaker of this poem does, saying "Wherever I go / At whatever hour / You do not release me"?

It would be difficult to accept such profound friendship due to its burden and our apologies, yet if we could be as the speaker, would we not wish to be so as well? If so, we must read yet another poem written from the same foundation.

Tears fall as I bid you farewell

Tears fall when I see you again

Through hours dark as death

Through desolate days of pain

Leaning on a spring day that limps toward us

Standing friend

You there, I here

Looking at each other in silence

The short day sets, already the evening grows dark

- "Spring Day"

The speaker sympathizes with the friend's "suffering" and "grief" beyond the friend's own sentiments. Through that course, at last touching for a brief spring evening. Yet the slanting glow of sunset seems unlikely to fade soon, bound as it is to a sigh of sentiment that crosses the boundary between the living and the dead, passing between both sides.