Turn Back the Clock 30 Years

A few days ago, two things I had been eagerly waiting for finally arrived on the same day. One was the posthumous collection of essays by the late Professor Jang Young-hee, titled "Like a Blessing, Flower Rain in the Morning," which her brother in Korea had told me via email he would send to me before its official release. The other was a set of components and software needed to convert and burn videotapes to DVDs.

 

I had over twenty tapes recorded when my daughters were young. They were difficult to watch frequently, and I worried that over time, the quality of the tapes would deteriorate. Before more time passed, I decided to convert them to DVDs for safekeeping and give each of my daughters a set. I connected the components to the video player and computer and began the process, but it was more complicated than I had anticipated. First, I had to play the videotapes and save the data to the computer, then edit the stored data and burn it onto DVDs. The entire process was incredibly time-consuming and required a level of persistence that I wasn’t sure I possessed.

 

As I worked, I read through Professor Jang's posthumous collection. While doing both tasks simultaneously, I came across a passage from Goethe’s "Faust" that she had introduced, which made me pause and reflect: "Give me back those days of rebellion, when joy was so deep it hurt, the power of hatred, and the turmoil of love. Ah, give me back my youth!"

 

Faust’s regret over his past must have been so great that he made a deal with the devil, Mephistopheles, to regain his youth at the cost of his soul upon death. What was my youth like? I had never felt joy so deep it hurt, nor had I harbored intense hatred for anyone. I never experienced a love so passionate it risked my life, like Romeo and Juliet, nor did I devote myself passionately to any grand cause. My youth passed without any of these intense experiences.

 

"Enjoying youth again under the condition of giving my soul to the devil? What would be the point? I would still end up growing old, living as a petty bourgeois, trying to provide for my family while keeping my boss happy. Enduring work I didn’t want to do, dealing with accidents or illness—what would I gain from it? My life had more hardships than happy times. Even if the devil tempted me, I’d refuse and just live my life as it is now."

 

Over the past few days, as I worked through the tapes, Faust was strangely on my mind. I didn't feel any regret over my youth, which hadn't amounted to much, and instead, I only thought about the difficulties I faced during that time. As I became more accustomed to the task, I gradually immersed myself in watching the tapes. The tapes, spanning from when my daughters were five and three years old to when they were thirteen and eleven, vividly documented my life in my thirties as if it were just yesterday.

 

There we were, my eldest daughter and I, hugging tightly and showering each other with kisses. "Daddy, me too," my younger daughter would say, clinging to me for a hug. My eldest daughter climbed onto her mother's back at the dining table while my younger daughter nestled into her chest. One bed had dolls neatly arranged at the head, and in the other bed, my two daughters slept soundly. Sometimes, the elder sister would crawl into the younger one's bed, and they’d fall asleep playing together.

 

Watching the video, which captured various moments of our daily life over nine years, I gradually forgot the difficult times and only remembered the happy moments we shared as a family. "Ah, how happy my youth was!" It's truly remarkable how fickle the human heart can be. After watching our family videos for a few days, my "difficult youth" had transformed into a "happy youth."

 

Wait a minute. What if, in this moment, the devil Mephistopheles appeared and said, "I will turn back the clock of your life by 30 years. Let's make a deal"? Should I pray, "Lord, lead me not into temptation," or should I decisively stamp the contract, saying, "Let's do it. After all, Faust regained his senses at the last moment and was saved"?

 

Nowadays, Mephistopheles must be too busy dealing with the big shots to show up to make a deal with someone as insignificant as me. It’s needless to worry. Reflecting on La Rochefoucauld’s saying, "People are neither as happy nor as unhappy as they imagine," I try to calm my fickle heart.