When I was in Korea this past June I had numerous life-changing experiences. But they were hard to define and hard to remember and hard to capture in any sort of tangible way. I couldn’t look back on them and force myself to action; even if I knew action was merited. I’ve been working through these memories and feelings leftover from Korea for the past five months or so and I still can’t figure much out.

I stayed in Busan, at the very southern-most tip of Korea, with a friend I’d known in high school, Christina. I’d known her through a friend, but as often happens when you’re traveling, I cashed in on all those faded relationship threads webbed out around me. Christina and I had never really had a conversation before, let alone spent seven days together, but I wasn’t nervous. Even then, I was vaguely aware of the type of person Christina is, and that left me with no worries.

I have never in my life met someone like Christina. She is ambitious, and driven, but also free and open. She is spiritual but grounded. She is many contradictions, but working it all so perfectly that you envy her for how she manages to live her life. But the main thing that amazes me about Christina is her selflessness. It is absolute. In a way I’ve never experienced before. To the point where I had to ask her about it.

To me, the self is all important. Self discovery is a path I would hate not to walk. Examining why I do things and why I feel the way I do about situations I find myself in often consumes me. I am concerned with bettering myself, with expanding my own ideas, with pushing myself to my limits. Exploring the idea of self and how people feel about it, and how this in turn affects their lives, interests me greatly. So when I was faced with Christina who was able to put her self aside, I was amazed. I’ve tried to do this and have failed. I cannot put myself second.

Christina told me, she simply holds herself open. Whenever she meets someone, instead of asserting her self onto them, she sit back and is open to what they are asserting onto her. She told me every single person we meet is desperately trying to tell us so many things; with our body language, the way we speak, the way our eyes looks, the words we choose, but all of this information usually has to compete with two outward selves facing off with one another, and the result is that nothing gets heard. Christina makes a conscious decision to hold her self back, and to experience everything another person is offering up to her. She told me she has a friend who does this so well, that people think she’s psychic.

After Christina told me about this being open to other people, I tried it, but I couldn’t do it. I mean, I have become a better person because I’m now able to stop myself from forcing my self upon other people, to an extent, but I can’t open myself up to others.

About half way through my time in Korea I met the psychic friend. She pulled me aside while we were all drunk and dancing at the only lesbian club in Busan and she told me I was unhappy. That I was not being who I truly am. That I loved but was not satisfied. That I was living a lie and needed to free myself from this lie in order to be happy. I nodded and agreed with her while not entirely caring what she said. No one could tell me how I felt but me. I knew I wasn’t completely happy, but I wasn’t living a lie. I was being who I am, and I was angry with her for doubting that. I didn’t even know her, and she didn’t know me. Despite the amazing things I’d seen Christina do, you could only receive what some other person was giving out, and I’d been told more than a few times that I leave much to be desired in that regard.

Writing this has made me very sad. I wanted to write it well, to use the kind of language it warranted, but I haven’t done that. I wanted to impress upon people the importance of these experiences to me, but I can’t seem to be able to articulate them well enough to do that. I wanted to impart some sort of inspiration with my words of how I was inspired by the selflessness of Christina, and yet how unable I am to emulate, or even imitate that selflessness. And I think part of the problem is I don’t quite believe myself. I’m writing this all out expecting to convey some sort of wisdom, when what seems to be dawning on me is the fact that I believe myself to be the most important person in my life and I think that’s okay.

I have been called selfish numerous times by people who love me very much. It is always when they are angry, and they always take it back, but I don’t really believe them. I’ve been called selfish by one person when they were not angry with me, and they’ve never taken it back. But they explained it as having a code. A code I know how to decipher but enjoy rewriting. (It’s more complicated than that, but too difficult to explain.)

I can feel that pressure at the back of my throat that happens when I try not to cry, and the rushing through my ears when I’m sure I will anyway. I don’t think I’m wrong to feel this way. I don’t think it can be wrong. It’s just different. Because I’ve been told my whole life that being selfish detracts from other people’s happiness - but I know this is a lie. I make people happy. I go out of my way to make people happy. If the reason I do this is to make myself happy, so what?

Can everything/anything be explained simply?