The Drifting PhD, The Anchored Boy

I was thirty, a freshly minted PhD stepping out into the world. I had a long list of degrees, but I had completely lost my own direction. ‘How do I make a living now?’ Carrying this unsolved variable, I fled to the ends of the earth—an Icelandic work camp.

There, I met a Dutch boy. Eighteen. At that age in Korea, he would have been buried in textbooks, fighting for a score on the college entrance exam that determines one’s entire future. But here he was, traveling the world, already holding life’s biggest questions in his hands.

“What is your dream?” When I asked, his eyes sparked. “I want to be an architect who builds floating houses. The Netherlands is famous for architecture, but we’re also serious about rising sea levels.”

I felt a sudden wave of shame. I was over thirty, worrying about how to make a name for myself, how to just put food on my own table. But this kid, stroking his patchy, barely-grown beard, was worrying about the survival of the human race.

Who is the real adult here? Perhaps maturity is determined not by age, but by the size of the questions one holds.

Play like a Child, Fight like a Warrior

The temperature gap in the camp was extreme—not just the weather, but the people. We cooked mismatched dishes from our home countries and laughed while getting buried in snow during snowball fights. When bored, we cracked jokes on the sofa or raided the fridge like hungry teenagers.

Then, someone would pull out rolling paper and tobacco. Sticking the tip of their tongue out, focusing intensely so not a single leaf would fall, they rolled their cigarettes. “My way burns better”, “No, you packed it too tight.” Bickering over trivialities, they were innocent twenty-somethings.

But when night came and the debate started, their eyes changed completely. Hands that had just been throwing snowballs were now flipping through climate crisis reports, gesturing fiercely.

“A carbon tax is discriminatory. It’s just the wealthy nations talking full-bellied nonsense!”

“No, that’s complacent. If we don’t act now, my country won’t exist in ten years.”

“In Germany, we already track carbon footprints systematically...”

They were not afraid of being serious. In fact, they thought being earnest was cool.

Where I came from, we were taught that being too serious was “uncool.” We treated sincerity like a buzzkill, mocking those who cared too much.

But these kids? They played like children, yet debated like warriors.

The Melting of a Young Activist

That night, a blizzard raged. We gathered in the base camp cabin. Outside, it was minus 20 degrees. Inside, the wood stove kept us warm. But my mind was out there, lost in the whiteout.

Actually, I was the original child environmentalist. If I were born in this generation, the media might have branded me as the "K-Thunberg". Water pollution, the ozone layer, global warming... I was the kid who cried for the Earth more than anyone.

But as I grew up, facing the gaze that mocked sincerity, that part of me melted away like the glaciers of Iceland. I learned to be “chill.” I learned to be cynical. As I studied science, I turned into a convenient nihilist. Maybe it was just an excuse to rationalize my closed eyes.

“The tipping point has passed. What can one person do anyway?” With that, I thought I had become a clever, practical adult. Decades after running away with that rationalization, here in Iceland, I was finally confronting the past I had abandoned.

The Size of Your Question is the Size of Your Life

The blizzard raged all night, but morning brought a lie-like sunshine. Light poured over the piled snow, piercing through the floor-to-ceiling window, illuminating my shame.

I stirred cocoa powder into warm milk. Clink, clink. Stirring endlessly with a teaspoon, I stared blankly out the glass wall.

‘Right. Before coming here, I thought I was pretty cool.’ I thought I knew a lot. I thought I had achieved a lot. People listened to me, and hiding my arrogance, I used to spout cynical words as if I had seen it all.

Iceland, the edge of the world. Sitting on a cozy sofa in the sunlight, I realized: How trivial and shabby I am, worrying only about the small comfort right in front of my nose.

The cocoa in my cup swirled aimlessly, round and round. ‘The future of humanity that I judged hopeless, The reality I turned away from out of fear, These young friends are facing it head-on.’

Splat—!

A wet, dull sound pulled me out of the spiral. A snowball hit the glass right in front of my face and crumbled. Through the window, a few friends were looking at me, laughing breathlessly. I couldn’t hear them through the thick glass, but with proud faces, they pointed to one spot.

‘They made a snowman!’

The snow that had been piled up to our thighs—the obstacle that trapped us—had been rolled for hours. It stood there now, transformed into a giant, smiling snowman.

I slowly raised my hand and gave them a thumbs-up. Under the warm sunshine that made you forget the freezing night, the snowman was smiling brilliantly.

(End.)

Micro-Mission: My Lost Dream 🧐

What questions are you living with today?

The size of your question determines the size of your world. Recall the questions you folded away because the world said they were “impossible.” Recall the dreams you dreamed purely as a child.

That dream is surely bigger than the worries you hold right now.
Just asking, “What was my childhood dream?” is the beginning of growth.

⬇️ If you are ready to find your question again, click below.

[Click to Complete Mission 🕊️]