Kyoung Sook-Shin in NYTimes article..If the World Was Ending, What would your last message be?
Dec. 1, 2017
This is an article from Turning Points, a magazine that explores what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead.
If the world was coming to an end and we were to send one last message out into the cosmos that summed up the beauty of life on Earth, what would it be? Jane Goodall, Mohsin Hamid, Oscar Murillo, James Dyson, Richard Dawkins, Kyung-sook Shin and Daniel Humm tell us.
Tell us how you would sum up the beauty of life on Earth on the Times Opinion Facebook page. We may highlight your response in a follow-up to this piece.
I was happy to be able to live on this Earth as my mother’s daughter. She taught me how to walk, how to put on clothes, how to speak my name. After I grew a bit older, she taught me that reading books is an important part of living in this world. Through her life itself, my mother taught me how to plant seeds, and that you reap what you sow, as well as how to console people when they are sad.
When I was 22, I started writing novels in my mother tongue, a language filled with the essence of my mother. I wrote about everything that is born in our hearts and in this world, from sorrow and beauty to passion and love. With words, I strived to restore things that had disappeared. I also wrote about my mother, who gave me everything but whom I took for granted at times.
Writing was my way of paying tribute to everything that was once alive on Earth and has since left. If I had raised a daughter, I would have taught her everything that I learned from my mother. I wish I could have.