Series. A Country Without Borders - Mongolia

On the day I finished grad school and received my PhD, all I was left with was a profound emptiness that was hard to escape.

I had embarked on my studies with a burning desire to find absolute truth, but the more I researched, the clearer the reality became. Science—what I had firmly believed to be the ultimate truth—was ultimately just a temporary consensus among contemporary scientists. Realizing this firsthand, I did something drastic: I made a so-called "crazy choice." I decided to walk a path entirely unrelated to my freshly minted PhD and my promising future. Then I thought: 'So... what do I do now?' The moment I decided to let go of the rope I had held onto for so long, I felt the ground collapse beneath my feet.

Everyone was sprinting forward as if by some unspoken agreement. I stood still in the middle of the track, looking around. In that void where nothing was decided, a rising terror gripped me—the fear that I was the only one falling behind.

And that wasn't all. At home, my mother was growing weaker from a long battle with illness. Staying in my room and watching her deteriorate was unbearable, yet stepping outside and coldly letting what little time we might have left slip away felt just as heavy. There was no path forward, and no room to step back. Every space around me felt blocked by solid walls, making it hard to even breathe.

Around that time, Dae-ho—a close friend and roommate for seven years through undergrad and grad school—suddenly spoke up.

"Hey, let's go on a trip before I get married."

The destination: Mongolia.

Alongside unfamiliar companions gathered through an online community, we set off for the land with the lowest population density on Earth. We headed toward vast, wide-open steppes completely devoid of any obstructing walls.

I didn’t know it then. What it would feel like to speed across desolate plains on unmapped roads as the conveniences of civilization were stripped away one by one. What raw, dormant senses would awaken. Just how small human existence is beneath a pitch-black night sky erased of all human traces, and how desperately we would need each other’s warmth.

What happens when a city dweller, suffocating within walls on all sides, is thrown into a colossal wilderness with absolutely no borders.

I now open the door to that clumsy expedition.

(This series will be published every Friday.)