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Thoughts of the Times

Thoughts of the Times

The secrets of living well and dying happy

When I first came across a book titled "The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die," I brushed it aside. Are there really secrets to living well? The title struck me as another attempt to package ancient wisdom into a self-help formula. After all, people have wrestled with this question for a long time. Aristotle pondered what constitutes a good life. He argued that true happiness comes from fulfilling one's potential and living with purpose and virtue. A meaningful life, he suggested, is not measured by wealth or status but by becoming the best version of oneself through work, creativity, service and meaningful relationships. The question has accompanied me throughout my adult life. What was my life meant to fulfill? What was I uniquely supposed to accomplish in this world? Later, I encountered the writings of Viktor Frankl, a student of Freud and a survivor of Nazi concentration camps. Frankl believed that the search for meaning is the ultimate human drive. His insight resonated deeply with me. As I grow older, I find myself returning to these questions. How do we discover the

15h agoBy Shin Freedman
The secrets of living well and dying happy
Thoughts of the Times

Why did Jensen Huang refuse to see the future?

On the June 10 episode of tvN's "You Quiz on the Block," host Yoo Jae-suk asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to choose between perfect foresight and unbreakable resilience. Huang answered without hesitation: resilience. His reasoning was arithmetic. One option is impossible for any human to hold. The other anyone can be built. There was nothing to weigh. Set that beside the second question Yoo posed. Speak with your past self or your future self? Huang chose the future. He declined the chance to correct past mistakes and instead walked toward his future self. Two answers, one worldview. He does not try to reach back and control time. He bets on enduring whatever arrives and standing up again. Nvidia is the proof. In 2006, when the market was focused on graphics cards and nothing more, Huang poured a fortune into CUDA. For nearly a decade, investors looked away, and the company's value once fell below $10 billion. He has spoken often about the mid-1990s, when Nvidia came within weeks of collapse. He did not survive by predicting the artificial intelligence wave. He survived by surviving the

Jun 25, 2026By Choi Hee-jin
Why did Jensen Huang refuse to see the future?
Thoughts of the Times

Nostalgia on the rails

In the early 1960s, few families in Korea could afford a watch, television or even a radio. My parents, like many of their generation, relied on the distant whistle of a passing train to know when to begin their day. In those years, the railway was far more than a means of transportation; it was a dependable marker of daily life and a powerful symbol of modernity in a rapidly changing society. Yet Korea's rail story extends beyond the locomotives of older generations. Long before today's high-speed trains, trams introduced a new vision of urban mobility, bringing modern transportation directly into city streets. On the Korean Peninsula, this innovation arrived early. Seoul's first tram line began operations in 1899 during the 1897-1910 Korean Empire, connecting Seodaemun and Cheongnyangni along an 8-kilometer route. At the turn of the 20th century, the tram became a visible symbol of modernization and international engagement. For residents and foreign visitors alike, it reflected a city embracing new technologies while opening itself to the wider world. There is something romantic abou

Jun 24, 2026By Choe Chong-dae
Nostalgia on the rails
Thoughts of the Times

SpaceX public listing makes history

Way back on July 20, 1969, the United States made history when astronaut Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon and, with great drama, verbally confirmed the historic event back to earth. Now Elon Musk and SpaceX have achieved a somewhat comparable milestone. On June 12, the much-anticipated and highly-hyped initial public offering of SpaceX proved a success of stratospheric proportions. The stock quickly rose 19 percent. Musk has become the first trillionaire in history. Make that the first trillionaire on earth. Musk is anxious not only to explore other planets but also populate them. There is no doubt that he is a visionary, in multiple meanings of that term. When he talks, we should pay attention – though not necessarily agree. SpaceX quickly became the sixth most valuable publicly listed company, boasting a capitalization of $2.1 trillion. Shares began trading at $150, 11 percent above the initial public offering price of $135, The share price at the end of the first trading day was $160.95. Significantly, the five companies with greater initial value than SpaceX are all c

Jun 23, 2026By Arthur I. Cyr
SpaceX public listing makes history
Thoughts of the Times

Why travel matters

Since my youth, I have been curious about the world beyond the Korean Peninsula. Over time, that curiosity deepened into a longing to travel the world. In pursuit of that longing, I embarked on a career as an international banker, a path that eventually led me to become an avid traveler. To be more specific, my working life spanning 30-odd years was a succession of transfers. I relocated 11 times mostly crossing international borders to work successively in seven cities across four different countries. I also traveled to many parts of the world on business or for pleasure. In retirement, I go places, as I please. So far, I have set foot on all continents except Africa. Based on my own experience, I would like to illustrate why travel matters. Above all, travel deepens our understanding of life. We can learn about many countries of the world through diligent reading. Yet what we learn from books remains merely intellectual. Travel brings our knowledge vividly to life. When we walk through the streets of unfamiliar cities and observe how people live in different countries, the world that

Jun 22, 2026By Lee Hyon-soo
Why travel matters
Thoughts of the Times

Being in nature

Looking at flowers lets me be happy and peaceful. It is always a cheerful sight to see our neighbors taking care of flowers and plants here and there. When I take a walk in the mountains, what a joy to see a good man planting various flowers and taking care of them along the walking paths. In another nearby mountain ridge, there is a man who constantly tidies up the winding walking path by pulling weeds with an iron rake. One day, I asked him if he is a volunteer for an environmental protection group. He replied simply, “I am just exercising by pulling weeds.” While walking the trails, I observe farmers reclaiming a field at the foot of the mountains. Sometimes, I appreciate wild flowers blooming in their fields. Being surrounded by flowers and being friendly with nature always bring us much joy, hope and consolation. I think the spirit of being in nature and with nature has been inherited from Toegye Yi Hwang (1501-70). To him, nature was not a simple background, but an object of realizing human nature and cultivating the self sincerely. He believed that nature and humans are mirror

Jun 21, 2026By Kim Ae-ran
Being in nature
Thoughts of the Times

How should we live in an age of anxiety and exhaustion?

Alexis de Tocqueville once observed a peculiar melancholy lingering amid abundance. Nearly two centuries later, his insight feels relevant to contemporary Korea. Recently, I came across a social media post titled, “I love Korea, but I also dislike Korea.” It captured a familiar tension — affection for the warmth of "jeong" and the efficiency of everyday life, alongside discomfort with a culture marked by sharp competition, status-consciousness and the quiet normalization of social indifference. Beneath Korea’s success lies a question many are asking: What kind of society have we become? For generations, Koreans pursued self-improvement with determination, seeing hard work and discipline as pathways to dignity and social mobility. Yet beneath this achievement lies a persistent anxiety about inequality, insecurity and the future. These pressures shape institutions but also what sociologist Robert Bellah described as the moral and cultural dispositions that quietly guide how people think, value and relate to one another. In the Korean context, cultural critic Jin Joong-kwon identif

Jun 17, 2026By Chang Se-myeong
How should we live in an age of anxiety and exhaustion?
Thoughts of the Times

An American general's statue

In Korea, June is designated as the "Month of Patriots and Veterans," a time to honor those who sacrificed for the nation’s survival and freedom. For many of us, however, remembrance often feels abstract, confined to ceremonies or history books. Yet sometimes, related memories come back to us in usual surroundings. In my case, it was during a routine walk through the Children’s Grand Park in my neighborhood. Amid playgrounds and shaded paths, I noticed a statue I had long passed without much thought: the bronze figure of John B. Coulter (1891–1983). He was a U.S. Army general whose name is unfamiliar to most Koreans today. As the deputy commander of the Eighth U.S. Army during the 1950-53 Korean War, he played a crucial role in combat operations. Still, unlike generals such as Douglas MacArthur and Walton Walker, whose fame mainly rests on battlefield victories, Coulter distinguished himself by his commitment to Korea’s recovery. After the war, he was deeply involved in stabilizing civilian life, supporting concrete and practical reconstruction as the agent-general of United Nati

Jun 16, 2026By Sho Chang-young
An American general's statue
Thoughts of the Times

Hip Buddhism and Korea’s generational rupture

It’s not entirely inaccurate to link Korea’s post-war industrialization and headlong dive into capitalism with the rise of Protestantism. Its ascendancy eclipsed the traditional and indigenous religious landscape of Korea across a vast swath of Korea’s society, especially among the well-to-do and wanna be’s. This dominance extended into the Korean diaspora. Growing up in Paraguay when I was little, I remember hiding my parents Buddhist religious artifacts from other Korean friends who came to play since I knew that every Korean in Asuncion was a devout Christian with avowed hatred of Buddhism, which seemed backward and superstitious. Based on that trend line, Buddhism should be on its last legs in South Korea. The country is one of the most wired, urbanized, and secular societies in the world. Young people are delaying marriage, abandoning organized religion, and spending more time online than in temples. Yet one of the most unexpected cultural stories of the past two years has been the rise of “hip Buddhism.” In fact, the Korea Times recent published an article titled, “F

Jun 15, 2026By Jason Lim
Hip Buddhism and Korea’s generational rupture
Thoughts of the Times

Life after the curtain falls: What 'Wild Sing' asks of former idols

The performance has ended, but life must go on. The humor in "Wild Sing" begins when actors Gang Dong-won, Um Tae-goo and Park Ji-hyun subvert familiar screen images of bodies that might once have commanded a stage reduced to ordinary survival. Director Son Jae-gon turns the desperate comeback of the fictional Triangle, a once-popular 1990s co-ed trio that disbanded overnight, into a road movie. Through the collision of absurdist comedy with financial precarity, the film turns laughter into social recognition. The comedy soon dives into the realities of life. The group’s leader drifts from one minor gig to another, while another, crushed by debt, swallows his pride for a paycheck. These scenes move beyond comic humiliation to expose the damaged dignity of people pushed offstage and left to survive without applause. Most poignant is the group's only woman, who has traded her glamorous past for a suffocating marriage, only to escape back toward the stage. Their journey confronts an uncomfortable truth: The industry that once consumed these performers as commodities offered them no real

Jun 15, 2026By Park Myung-kwan
Life after the curtain falls: What 'Wild Sing' asks of former idols
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