destiny

In our modern era, when democracy is not just a system of laws or a set of elections but a life practice of people who work together with others to set a collective destiny, it’s crucial that we hold fast to that because the alternative is to retreat, as you noted, into solitude.

After accepting that the park was his destiny, he embarked on renovations — a last-ditch effort to rejuvenate the park that lasted three years and cost him the last of his assets: the yacht and the two apartments in Seoul, each fetching several million dollars.

“But looking back, I know this was my destiny. I think it’s important to know your destiny, but we usually don’t know until much later in life. We struggle, we fight against it. And we experience so much anxiety trying to find ourselves when our true selves are staring us in the face all that time.”

“Demography,” these left-wing optimists liked to say, “is destiny.”

Sixteen years later, however, that destiny appears to have turned to dust.