Love You, Me

Self-love and self-knowledge are two different things. – Victor Hugo

Yesterday, in "A Few Things I Want to Do in 2026," I wrote: "Writing is a wonderful journey. Along the way, I've gotten to know myself better. You could even say that before this, I'd never really gotten to know myself."
After I wrote that, I couldn't help thinking it over, and I came to a conclusion: before trying to love, get to know yourself first.
The word "love" always comes with a bit of mystery. In daily talk, we're happy to share other people's good news and to complain about our own sad things, but in this fast-moving age we rarely sit down and talk about "love." It seems that only in the quiet of night do thoughts about it quietly rise.
So what is love?
To me, love isn't just a feeling. It's an ability. Specifically, love is the ability to keep each other in a state of positive development.
Today, at this turning point between the old year and the new, I want to use the lens of "love" to answer three basic questions about how to live: Why do people live? How should we live? What kind of life is worth living?

1. Why Do People Live?
My answer: to live for "love" of something concrete.
If I only said "live for love," it would sound empty. I have to stress that this love must point somewhere.
As I said, love is the ability to keep people in a state of positive development. Put simply, when you truly love something, both you and that thing get better because of that love.
Everything flows and changes every moment. The direction of development decides where we're headed. Because I love myself, I use self-discipline to become better. Because I love you, I'm willing to work for our future and help you become better. Because I love this world, I'm willing to offer kindness and warm up the world around me.
You can say love is a feeling, but you can never say it's vague and unreal. Because real love always comes with concrete, upward practice.

2. How Should We Live?
My answer: build your ability to "love," and live with "love."
Love isn't a gift we're born with. It's an ability that has to be learned. And the precondition for that ability is deep understanding.
What you love can be a person, like a partner or family, or a thing, like a hobby or a career. But before you say you "love" them, you have to understand them. To love a person, you need to understand their joys and sorrows. To love a career, you need to see its patterns.
And the starting point of all this is that you must first understand yourself. Do you know what you like and dislike? You have to learn by trying and failing and experiencing.
So the flip side of "love" is understanding, and the flip side of understanding is countless concrete acts of practice. Only by trying and hitting walls again and again can we make out the outline of "love" and use it as a staff to hold up our lives.

3. What Kind of Life Is Worth Living?
This question is big and heavy, but I still stand by my answer: a life with "love" is worth living.
Why? Because "love" is never a standalone thing. It stands for a lot of things.
First, it stands for a thriving, upward-reaching vitality.
If you deeply love everything you have, everything you see is gentle. In that state, everything feels like a spring breeze, as if the world is always in spring and everything is growing freely. Because there is love, your heart is never barren.
Second, it stands for each concrete, small act of practice. Love isn't a concept hanging in the air. It's practice that has to touch the ground. Not every action produces love, but love is surely born in every act you throw yourself into completely. If you can bring love to every ordinary day, that life is complete enough.
Finally, it stands for a deep connection with the world. Without love, a person is an island adrift at sea. Love is the bridge that takes us out of our narrow selves into the wider world. It means we stop only taking and start being willing to understand, accept, and give. It's this deep interaction with others and with the world that widens the dimensions of our lives and lets us experience endless possibilities in a limited time.
So a life with "love" is also a life with vitality, the power to act, and a sense of connection.
How could a life like that be meaningless?

4. How I Got to Know Myself
Looking back over the past two-plus months, my life has never had such a dense stretch of creating.
Writing every day isn't just output. It's a process that forces me to feel life and question my heart. Writing about tidying my wardrobe, I found the minimalist streak deep inside me. Writing about history and worldviews, I sorted out again the logic of how I see the world.
Writing is my mirror. I believe everyone should have something like this in life. Like mountain climbing for Mori Buntaro, or esports for Lee Sang-hyeok, something that lets you see your true self in it.

5. How Have I Changed?
In the days I've kept up writing, small changes are happening.
The most visible is that I've started taking photos of myself. I used to think I wasn't photogenic and always said, "What I shoot doesn't matter, recording matters."
But on second thought, if years from now I flip through my album and find only mountains, lakes, flowers, and birds, with only me missing, what a pity that would be. Now I'm no longer shy. I've started taking photos of myself, just to record the state of me and the world in the same frame at one moment.
Second, I've confirmed my love of writing.
My test for love is unusual: is my heart calm while I do this thing?
When I write, I feel an extreme calm, and the feeling is addictive.
Maybe I'm someone who naturally seeks calm rather than burning bright.
What is love for a thing? It's when one day you suddenly feel life is short and time is too little, and you stay up late and get up early just to spend time with what you love.
For me, enjoying the calm that something brings is also a deep kind of love. That calm is a cure for fear and anxiety.
In this state, I could even accept death gladly.
It's hard to imagine that I picked up my pen at the end of October and, before I knew it, wrote all the way to now.
By the time this article is published, it will be the last few hours of 2025.
When I close my eyes and open them again, I'll meet the me of 2026.
I'm very satisfied with how this year ends. I made new friends, and I reunited with the self who loves writing and recording.

Love you, me. See you next year.