I Should Stop Growing

Charli XCX reflects on meeting her friend’s baby in the song “I Think About It All The Time” from the album Brat. She experiences beauty and joy in the encounter, which makes her question whether she should stop birth control.

At the core of Charli’s dilemma lies a fear of living life without ever knowing a certain kind of joy or experience. Her friends, as a couple with a child, have become people who now know something she doesn’t. (“And now they both know these things that I don’t.”)

In the novel The Proof of the Orb(구의 증명), the character “Dam” asks her aunt, “What is darkness?” Her aunt explains as much as she can but eventually grows frustrated, saying, “You’ll come to know it naturally as you live. Asking again and again won’t make you understand it now.”

Unable to understand, Dam becomes angry and shouts, “But if I die right now, I’ll never know what it is!” Being told to wait and that some things can’t be understood right away often sparks frustration and rage.

I’ve often thought about the version of myself that didn’t become a software engineer. What if I had stuck it out as a magazine editor, enduring the difficulty of early days? By now, I might have earned autonomy, writing what I truly want to and enjoying it. If that path might have been the happier one, I feel a certain regret or fear at the thought of never knowing that way of living.

In response to these feelings, I’ve resisted by constantly expanding myself, refusing to let opportunities for greater happiness or achievement slip by.

These possibilities presented themselves like this: Since I became a developer, shouldn’t I aim to work in Silicon Valley? Shouldn’t I strive to earn significant wealth in my life? To achieve this, I have to learn more, grow further, and push myself outward. I must understand and absorb more. I maintained a demanding lifestyle, planning and chasing these goals with anxious urgency, until I became utterly exhausted.

Lying sprawled on my bed after work, I think: What if, instead of growing larger to meet these intimidating worlds, I stayed as I am, lying here like a dog, unafraid? What if I focused on observing and understanding the things closer to me instead of striving outward?

Have I been intoxicated by life’s infinite possibilities, living just to chase them?

This year, I’ve set only small goals for myself. Rather than venturing far, I want to learn more about what surrounds me closely. Of course, there’s a chance all this will amount to is working 50 hours a week and getting a bit more sleep…

So I hope people skim through this post lightly.