The Number Devil

created: 2022.05.18. 16:31 · modified: 2022.05.19. 13:25 ·  · license

This post was automatically translated and has not yet been reviewed by me. Please read with discretion.

This guy is my KakaoTalk profile picture right now. Know who he is? He’s the Number Devil, from the book of the same name. The book was so popular that some of you probably recognized him right away.

Why did I make this strange-looking guy my profile picture?
You know that feeling when you unexpectedly come across a cartoon character you saw all the time as a kid but haven’t thought about in years? That rush of nostalgia. To be honest, I didn’t think much of him back then. (I was looking him up on Namuwiki and rediscovered his real name, which I’d forgotten: Teplotaxl!) When I read the book, I identified with the little boy having the dreams, not with him.

But yesterday, or maybe the day before, I was scrolling through Instagram when he suddenly appeared in a post, and I felt something strange. As a kid, I’d thought of him as an all-knowing ghost of a teacher. Looking at him now, he just seemed like someone my age with a beard. I felt an odd sense of kinship. I wonder if he’s done his military service.

I’ve been having thoughts like that a lot lately—
about how I’m really not that young anymore. When a hugely successful idol is younger than me. When I watch a camcorder video my dad took of an open class at my preschool sports program and realize the teacher in it might have been the age I am now. When I realize my mom wasn’t much older than I am now when she gave birth to me.

It’s not that my age makes me feel inadequate.
Sure, I sometimes envy people my age who found success early on. But I’ve worked hard in my own way, and I’ve achieved a few modest things too.

Speaking of getting older,
for some reason this year I found myself noticing spring arrive—the flowers blooming, the grass sprouting. I figured I just had more time to look around while walking now that my final semester was a little less busy. Then I had a meal with a friend and told them about it, and they said it was because I was getting older. I’m not sure I understood exactly what they meant, but I took it as a joke at the time. The more I think about it, though, the less it feels like something I should laugh off.

Growing up, there have been a few milestones that showed me I’d reached a new stage of mental growth. The one I remember best happened around middle school: I gained the ability to think something over before saying it out loud. I don’t know exactly when it started, but suddenly I was doing something I definitely couldn’t do before.

I think being able to notice and enjoy the arrival of spring might be another milestone like that.
And more recently, I feel like I’m learning how to appreciate song lyrics. Until now, most of the songs I loved had won me over with their melodies. Of course I understood the lyrics, and some of them moved me, but I think it’s only recently that I’ve fully felt what happens when lyrics and melody come together as a song.

I used to think that just as people stop growing taller once their physical growth ends, there would come a point when the mind’s growth plates closed too. After that, you could learn more facts, but your depth of understanding wouldn’t change much. I thought I’d already passed that point. There was even a time when I arrogantly responded to my parents’ advice by thinking, “Do you think I don’t know that already?”

But seeing myself discover new milestones even now makes me realize I was wrong. The mind keeps growing, even if it grows more slowly than it did in adolescence. I imagine it’ll keep doing so until just before I die.

I’ve had that thought a few times. The most vivid was at the end of my first year of college, on a trip to Australia. After spending the day exploring a national park, I got on a train back to Sydney, pleasantly worn out. BTS’s “Euphoria” was playing in my earphones. I felt so satisfied with the day that I wondered whether I could ever be happier. What if this moment was the peak of my life, and it was all downhill from here? When I got old, I wouldn’t have the energy to roam around like this, and fewer new sights would make my heart race.

I’d overlooked mental growth. As the years go by, I’ll probably find more to feel even in the same things—just as flowers, grass, and song lyrics have come to mean something different to me over the past few years.

So far, my mind seems to have grown just fine on its own. But it suddenly occurs to me that there might be things I can do to help it along. Maybe there are heights I’ll never reach unless I make a conscious effort. Perhaps I should read more books.

I went to bed early tonight, hoping to get to sleep sooner, but I couldn’t sleep. These thoughts kept running through my head, so I just rambled on and wrote them down.