[Voices of the MZ Generation Column] The Usefulness of Literature and Books in an Age of Image Overload

Our era makes us focus only on the "things right in front of us" and blinds us to long-term life perspectives. Various social networking services (SNS) and media platforms like YouTube overflow daily with things we must keep up with. There are countless "hot places" that everyone else seems to visit but I do not, all kinds of items, goods, and luxury products that everyone else has but I lack, dramas or movies that everyone else has seen but I have not, and issues that everyone else knows about but I do not?all filling our daily lives.

Most of these immediate things are phenomena of consumer society and are related to someone's profit. Instead of seriously contemplating the long-term outlook or meaning of life, the more we chase these things in real time, by the second, all that attention turns into someone’s "money."

Personally, I believe that to have and focus on a long-term outlook on life, the meaning of life, and one’s own values, "reading" is very important. This is because all those things are "invisible." Our era is immersed in an excess of visible things. The number of images we see through smartphones all day is countless. Most people complain of eye pain from staring at something all day. But to gaze upon the future and meaning of life, one must close their eyes.

In particular, literature gives us the ability to nurture that invisible life within us because we see not with our eyes but with our hearts. We learn how to see life with our hearts and can think about life holistically. When looking at others, we learn not only to see their outward appearance but also their psychology, inner self, and heart. Literature allows us to imagine with our hearts from a single scene to the character and their entire life, continuously connecting us with the invisible, thereby giving us the strength to fight all the "visible" things.

The way to cross an era of image excess is to cultivate something on the opposite side of that excess of images. Just as to block water you must build a dam with earth, to fight that something you must construct its opposite. To fight external images, you must build internal images. You must recover the vision for internal images and learn how to keep the center of your own life.

The perspective to see life long-term is extremely important. In fact, almost everything in life is created only in the long term. Love begins with being tempted by the person right in front of you, but deep affection is ultimately formed by a combination of long time, memories, conversations, and a shared direction for life. Almost all achievements, whether in art or society, are accomplished through trust in long time, effort, and perseverance.

The reason I read books every day is not just because I like books, but because every time I read, I feel that I escape from this dazzling world right in front of me and enter a deeper and broader life. In that inner world, I feel that I slightly step away from the things before my eyes and gain a perspective on a much longer life. I feel that this protects my life and gives me my center. Cultivating that inner strength for my life is the usefulness of literature and books, and it is also the way to cross our era.

Jung Ji-woo, Cultural Critic