The Story of Hong Gildong
Do you have the will to break your given old limitations and pioneer a new path?
📝ONGO's Reflection
The shock of rereading The Story of Hong Gildong with the fierce spirit of the original—after knowing it only through cartoons and fairy tales as a child—was great. The famous lament, "unable to call his father his father," is no mere self-pity but the starting point of a sharp-edged revolt against an absurd world. The Gildong that Heo Gyun drew refuses to submit to the yoke of social status that binds him; he leads his own band of followers and founds the ideal state of Yuldo, the perfect island-nation. When I want to give up before the limits the world has drawn, I picture the back of this exhilarating hero, riding the clouds into the sky as if to mock the old order.
"If a man born into this world cannot achieve his will, it is better to be buried in the grass than to live bending over."Heo Gyun, The Story of Hong Gildong
"대장부가 세상에 태어나 뜻을 얻지 못하면, 차라리 풀밭에 묻힐지언정 굽히며 살지는 않으리라."
🌱Apply It Today
Write down something you've unconsciously decided "I could never do," then take one small action to break that line.
