Day 1
Should I get up or stay in bed? It’s a privileged thought to have. I know it. Yet it was still my reality and a real choice I had to make. Get up and do what? I asked myself. Walk to Busan. I answered. It was more of a convincing answer than the one I had given myself the morning before. Nothing. My past self had responded. I literally have nothing to do, no one to see, and nowhere to go. I wasn’t looking for sympathy or crying a tortured song for my pitiful self. It was just the facts, plain and simple. I had no job, had enough money that I wouldn’t starve or freeze in the near future, and was currently living in Seoul, South Korea away from my close friends and family. Sure, I had friends in Seoul too but I had used up my social tokens in the last few days and didn’t want to seem overly needy. Besides, they had their own lives to live too. Also, it wasn’t though I was new to Seoul’s cyberpunk alleyways and districts filled with endless chic cafes. I’d climbed a few of the surroundings sans or mountains if you prefer the English, not Bukhansan, the highest one though, I liked to pace myself. For nine months I had called the concrete jungle of Seoul ‘home’, if nine months is enough to use such a weighty word. And so the thrill of simply waking up and exploring a new Gu or Dong, district/area that is had lost its shiny and bright-eyed appeal. And so that’s why I faced this privileged yet existentially overbearing question. Should I get up or stay in bed? I knew what ‘stay in bed’ meant too which gave the question a sinister outline to it. It hung in my head with the heft of a threat as well as the levity of mere curiosity. Unfortunately the choice to stay in bed would mean those small three words would eventually domino into endless scrolling on social media, pausing just too long to look at a well-endowed lady in a bikini to make the algorithm send me more and more bikinis until the women were scarcely wearing anything at all. It was this or I would simply type something like ‘bikini’ into the search bar but on those details its easy to be hazy. Whichever was the case, whether algorithm or my own goaty tendencies led me, I would soon end up with one of those videos no one in it was wearing anything at all and the characters in the film would scream all sorts of bizarre utterances and sounds. Of course I would feel the usual buildup of pleasure and then release before mercilessly being hurled back into my dark room with a cloak of relaxation, guilt, and regret weighing heavily on my shoulders as well as being under a blanket that was ever so slightly heavier…
And so that question again looked at me from the darkness of my half-basement room. A room where the sunlight avoided my windows and never touched my eyelids with its gentle reach. That question with two glowing red eyes, opened its jaw and with a fang-filled mouth dripping saliva, It knew me all too well and I it. The only way to break a cycle is to break it now, not in the future, only ever in the now. And so I stare back at that haunting question, one of privilege but also one of existential malice. I thought about the furthest place away from it. A place and goal which would give me a convincing answer to the question prowling at the end of my bed, ready to leap onto me and sink its fangs into my carotids. And then I answered. It, the question, and myself. Like a bolt loosed from a cross bow it hit the creature in the head. “I’ll walk to Busan. The opposite end of the country. And I’ll do it now”
Now my answer wasn’t meant to sound high and mighty. An announcement of some hiter to unfinished and impossible journey. The idea had come to me precisely because so many people had done it before and just a few days prior during a mid-morning doom-scroll (between the bikinis) I stumbled upon someone who had completed the journey in 12 days. So no, I wasn’t venturing into the wild but rather was aiming to trek on well-travelled ground to a nice beach location loved by many. And so I started walking. Left foot, right foot. Making forward momentum as every other person knows how.
more Notes from hike diary –
Day 1
I left my hillside home of Huamdong and headed south.
Day 2
Blank
Day 3
I’m in a lot of pain. My right hip carked it with 3 hours to go and from that point on the going was tough. Also the journey from Suwon/Osan to Pyeongtaek is not an aesthetic one. Also day 3 of down titrating lithium.
Messaged XXXXXX if she likes the chocolates or not. She hasn’t tried. She’s my ex-wife who I still love. More on that later. Setting up mania buffer with friends.
Night 5 – Cheongno
After masturbating I entertained the thought of giving up. And it was liberating. I realised I didn’t actually have to walk to Busan. That my pains and aches weren’t a requirement for anything. But all my Ig posts – won’t it be embarrassing? What about telling all my friends? And what about what I would tell myself? I’d probably be the most disapproving of all. But I really, truly, entertained the idea of quitting and hushed everyone’s voices from my head – including my own. And what did I find? I realised there would be no dire consequences if I stopped – no tragic cosmic event would occur. The Earth’s rotation wouldn’t be stopped and even those random acquaintances who saw my Ig stories would probably keep living as though nothing had happened – at least I think.
So why was I even walking in the first place? It was tiring, lonely, painful, and mostly boring. Was I doing so I could say to someone in the future – “Oh I walked from Seoul to Busan, you know” In fact, was this why I became a doctor?
“And what do you do?”
“Oh I’m a doctor”
“Oh wow! So smart!”
Honestly that external validation probably was a lot of the reason. And here I was repeating it on a smaller scale. It had taken me years of training to become a doctor and a few years of work for that uncomfortable mask to shake free. The hike to Busan was barely anything compared to that. But if I was doing it for the same false reasons then despite its shortness it warranted stopping too. Maybe the motivation wasn’t external though. If I imagined a world when I had never told a soul about my hike would I ever want to complete it at all? Would my own knowledge that I had done it be reward enough? But this thought is just the same game with a different dealer. Was I too a slave to what I thought about myself? Even if I never told people would I smile mysteriously and flatter myself from time to time at the task I finished in secret? Besides, my self-construct had been shaped by what I thought others had wanted of me for most fo my life. To really listen to this egoic self was really to listen to a thousand different opinions, glances, remarks, praises, punishments, and the like, made by those closest to me as I had lived this life. Of course, most notably from my parents.
“Finish your plate! There are starving kids in Calcutta who would kill to eat what you’ve left there!” My Dad scolded me every time at dinner when I left a morsel of food on my plate. And perhaps this was the mentality I had now. I needed to finish the plate which stretched from Seoul to Busan. For there were starving kids in India desperate for an opportunity to do something like this! Or maybe it was the decades of schooling, sports training, and motivational movies and documentaries I had consumed. The phrase of ‘Never give up!’ and those more or less of the same quality had been drummed into me and probably every other person who’d ever lived. Including the starving Indian children. And maybe the ‘Never give up!”ness imposed onto me by the world was at the core of not wanting to stop my walk. Or if I allowed myself even the desire to stop then I would feel terribly guilty about it. No. I couldn’t base my choice on external nor internal motivations. For internal motivations are simply 34 years of sedimentary buildup of external factors. But if not external nor internal then what? What can I base my choices off? I truly did want to lose weight, but walking across a country seemed slightly unnecessary and extreme. I did like solitude and I also wanted to disconnect from porn, social media and general online life. But doing such a thing in today’s age necessitates social media!
“Are you going to document it? You definitely should!”
“Where can we follow your journey?”
Again the force of the external and my own dopamine system lighting up like a Christmas tree every time someone liked my story or exclaimed at how far I had walked. There was one friend though, he hiked the AT and wrote a diary each day which he then published. In fact he’s probably the reason I’m writing this now. As for general disconnecting from the net, the whole country has full signal. I haven’t been out of reception nor power once. And porn, I have abstained mostly because I’ve been sleeping in Jimjilbangs which are communal. But still, a win’s a win. And I have lost some weight too. Despite it only being a few days. Do I want to lose more? Sure, but again I’ll take it as it is.
But still the question hasn’t been answered properly. Why continue to walk? External/internal validation or for practical life improvements? And this brings us to a horrifying conclusion. That I really don’t know. That my choices are not mine to make. And the invisible puppet strings glint in the light for barely a moment. Was I the determined outcome of the Big Bang? Like everyone else? One ball hitting another hitting another and a few billion years later it makes as much sense for me to be questioning my decisions as it does for a ball to roll down a hill. Why? Because gravity. But why my life? Because everything before it. So is this immense freedom I feel at merely contemplating giving up a project before its done, going against decades of external and internal voices? This lightness and nimbleness, it it too, simply an illusion? This was the preordained ‘feeling free’ part of my story. Shortly to follow will be me forgetting all this and going back to the regular and calming illusion of free will. As opposed to this sudden glitch in the matrix. When Neo wakes up. Follow the white rabbit Neo. Follow the white rabbit. Except this version is now terrifying because in this version there is the matrix, or every day deterministic life with the bright and shiny illusion of free will. When Neo wakes up he discovers the ‘real world’ and sees what actual free will is for the first time. Our own glitch in the matrix is waking up to find the ‘real world’ also has no free will. Only now we are able to see past the illusion and look at the horrifying and monstrous grey machine we’ve been a part of our whole lives. Or maybe that’s too much of a depressive take. Maybe, once awake to brutal determinism we should feel immense love and awe at being a part of the universal mechanism that holds all of us in its galactic pistons, gears, and cogs.
Maybe this is enlightenment. Breaking the spell and truly not knowing what you’re going to do next. We’re always so sure of ourselves. Inescapably sure. Just as I know what the next word in this sentence will (be). So we live our lives on autopilot. Of course it takes us a few years to get there but once our education, training, and skills are built up, once we have enough heuristics to draw upon, what stops us from being genuine clankers who act in accordance to our programming? But the obvious catch here is that even trying to break out of your programming like I[‘m trying to do now, is still perfectly acting in line with it. For it is completely in my nature to do this too. That one proton which flung too far and fast into another was the start of the chain reaction which ended up in me. Both of us were trying to escape our destinies, and both of us were sent hurtling down a track from which there was now escape. Your own first proton spun and moved like you do now. Billions of years apart, the piece an the whole mirror each other. And yet I still don’t know what to do and it feels slightly exciting. Maybe I’m not about to cut my strings loose and escape the hand of determinism but it feels like he’s allowing me to dangle over the edge and look into the fathomless black ocean of cause and effect below.
Day 6
It’s drizzling – for the next few hours anyway and my back hurts. I can’t be bothered walking but like much motivation in the world I am spurred on by my disapproval of the things immediately around me. The Jimjilbang isn’t clean, the spas are either too hot or cool, etc. I’m talking about the real problems in life. Move over children being killed in the West Bank and Gaza. This here is the true tragedy of life; tepid water and overflowing bins. And so not in a position to fix anything and not wanting to either I chose to walk to a hotel 10km away in Cheong…something. It’s a short walk relative to what I’ve been doing and Cheong…something seems to be bigger and more, uh, established than where I am now. Not that where I am is not established. I actually quite like it. Just not this Jimjilbang. So I started my short walk and promptly stopped due to the rain. I wasn’t some peasant in feudal Korea delivering an important message to a lord. In fact there was no reason at all for me to be walking – as discussed before – so I stopped in a CU and ate chicken breast, drank protein milk, and tallied up my calories and protein. 545 calories, 118g protein. Not bad. Not that I’m a body builder. I’m not the least bit shredded to my ego’s distaste. I wish I was for then I could have more sex, allegedly, or so the story is sold. No, if anything I’m skinny fat. The worst of all combos…other than fat fat that is. Beauty standards in Korea are skewed. To put it mildly, and I’d been called fat by the last two girls I had slept with. Some even grabbed a handful of my belly to prove their point. Now, when I say self-deprecatingly that I’m skinny fat I’m not even that bad. My BMI is totally normal although I do need to put on muscle. (Need to) Says who? But in Korea I may as well be the elephant man. Except far less hung. No, w was counting calories and protein precisely because I wanted to lose weight and retain muscle. Or whatever muscle my ectomorph frame could scrape together.
Day 7
Newcomb Paradox
Sam Willoughby (ride)
Aus Kkoala Pie
Day… what day is it?
I awoke this morning to a strange sound. It was like a low-pitched clunking, like marbles in two suede bags being knocked together. I shivered in my sleeping bag and reluctantly reached out into the cold air to get my phone. It was 5:14am but the sky was already had the grey glow of pre-morning. I pulled my beanie tight over my eyes once ore and tried to sleep but that low-pitched clunking and grating noise prodded my thoughts. They whispered at me, “Go check. Go check what that is. Lest it come check on you”. And so I whimpered and pushed my sleeping bag down to my feet. My legs froze before I could get them into my cargo pants. I pulled on every shirt I had with me and then wore my only jumper on top of them. I paused one final time before unzipping my tent.
The guttural clunking sound was coming from the West of where I was.
“Zippp!” I pulled the tab too fast and the mosquito-like zipper sound tore through the cold morning air. I held my hand to my mouth as though it were guilty of the noise and strained as the silence reclaimed the fog around it. Creepily, the grinding glass sound which had awoken me stopped for a moment too. It then continued on and I was finally able to breathe again. More gently now I slowly unzipped the side door to my tent and crept quietly out into the blue fog of dawn.
It was horrible. If I had a more powerful word in reach I would use it. It was worse than horrible. It pierced my soul like no set of visuals had ever done so before. and it imprinted itself on me permanently in that instant. Like a malicious photo being slowly developed in a darkroom my nightmare hangs within me.And the nightmare was this.
A grey, wet, humanoid creature with skin so thin it was translucent was hunched over in a clearing. He/she/it rhythmically rocked back and forth and bowed down to some sort of shaggy rug. The creature’s back had its ribs and vertebrae sticking out at odd angles. They pushed out flaps of the translucent wet skin like tent poles had done for my tent. Random patches of hair grew in clusters on the creature’s body. It was as though the ghastly creature had various low quality wigs glued haphazardly all over. Some patches of hair were black and straight and extended 30cm or so. Some were thick and curly like pubic hair and of a dark brown hue. There were patches of wavy ginger hair and also strands of nearly invisible blonde locks which gently ran down the creature’s grotesque back like a creek in the moonlight. I had frozen at the sight of this thing and I could not stop staring although all the automatic processes in my body were signaling for me to flee. My heart was pounding, my hair on my arms stood on end, and my breathing was becoming increasingly audible as well as more rapid. My condensed breath wafted in front of my face and temporarily blurred my view of the abomination before me. And that blurring effect may just as well have saved my life for the creature suddenly turned around and looked in my direction. Due to my breath I was not able to see its face clearly but I did make out the colour. The deep red that was smeared on its face and that dripped off at varying intervals. It hadn’t been bowing down, I realized, and fury rug was in fact a warthog carcass with its insides strewn everywhere. The creature stared right at me. It had no bottom jaw and its tongue dangled hideously and limply from its face. It then rose to its full, albeit hunched height, and crunched on its mangled and misshapen feet towards me.
“Run!” I urged myself. “Run!” But like a dream in which your legs are lead and your limbs are not your own I could not move an inch. I continued to look through the merciful fog of my breath which still partially obscured the hellish creature and remained stuck to the spot. Perhaps if I had seen its face with uninterrupted sight I would have fallen down then and there but heaven thanks this didn’t happen. Closer it came. And its appearance revealed more unsightly things as it did so. I swear I saw teeth and fingernails protruding from its wet flesh as though its DNA had been confused about the regular configuration of a body. Hypnotized, mesmerized, and disgusted I stood frozen to the spot and closed my eyes as its hanging and lolling tongue became clearer and clearer in my view. When it was a few meters away I smelled its rotten breath – the breath of decay and death and foul meat and cancer and sewage all in one. I knew I would die. My body had surrendered to the demon of these woods.
An eagle shrieked in the distance and the spell was broken. I opened my eyes and saw the monster lumbering before me, one more step till it had me. The eagle cried again and a shot of adrenaline like a hot wire piercing into my muscles I was able to turn and flee from that godforsaken place and whatever that godforsaken thing was.
I don’t know which direction I ran. It couldn’t have been directly where I came from because I didn’t pass by my tent at all. I ran for what could have been ten minutes, the cold twigs slapping me in the face leaving stinging welts behind. At the very back of my mind a voice called out to me.
“All your things are back there. Including you food and water…and phone”
While springing through the forest I patted my side and felt my cargo pants to be flat. No technological bulge was apparent. No island of comfort attached to my hip. Just my burning thigh straining its muscles to keep me upright as I hurtled down the hill. Then for a moment either my brain or my muscle fibres misfired and my leg lifted itself slightly less than it had before. My foot then caught a loose root and I tripped. Tumbled. And then lay panting in the cold dirt. Amongst all the pain I collected my thoughts and saw the creature in my mind’s eye before all went black.