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Spring has turned everything a vivid, luminous green. I’m itching for a quick spring outing, but going alone feels reckless and trying to coordinate with others usually falls through. When daily obligations crowd out what we really want, aren’t we just letting life slip by? It feels like we’re handing our days over to shadow. Not long ago, a wolf escaped from a zoo and caused a real stir. People feared harm—imagining the animal like any escaped convict—and the footage shows the wolf repeatedly glancing back at the zoo. That look spoke to a homing instinct, yes, but also to a deep, paralyzing fear of freedom. Authorities deployed drones, thermal cameras and traps, and police special forces and fire crews joined the search—it played out like a military operation.
The wolf was caught only 9 days later; rescuers found fish, fishing hooks and leaves in its stomach. It must have been so desperate it ate whatever it could find. Whether human or animal, freedom comes with the responsibility to protect it. On my way home I stole a quiet moment to fly kites with some kids on the lawn at Changryongmun and enjoy a rare idle hour. In the crowded tourist area an Andes café stood out: they’d set up an Andean music session and were playing the zampoña (panpipes). The café owner, who quit his job after a trip to South America years ago, still roasts coffee there, clearly living inside that dream. He chased freedom but, like a tamed wolf inside us, lost some of youth’s nocturnal wildness. I wonder—does the freedom he once imagined still feel real today?
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