My mother, in her nineties, stayed with us for a few days. I am always grateful that she can still move around on her own and eats well. However, whenever she had a spare moment, she would hold her smartphone to her ear, listening intently to something. It turned out to be stories of women from YouTube. Stories of women who endured harsh treatment from in-laws, overcame betrayal and divorce, and reclaimed their place in life despite being hurt by their children. Of course, YouTube's algorithm tempts users by repeatedly generating similar stories, but regardless, my mother grieved, grew angry, and rejoiced alongside these protagonists.
There's a joke that when women go hiking alone, by the time they reach the summit, three or four of them have gathered to share lunch together, while men stare at the mountain across the way and eat alone. It speaks to women's superior ability to share stories and empathize with one another. The narratives of women who have passed through the same generation touch emotional strata and before long evoke a sense of solidarity.
My mother's evening scene may be another form of the age-old way humans have held onto each other through stories. Yuval Harari identifies "narrative" as the key factor that made human civilization possible. Humans collectively believed in orders and symbols that don't actually exist and built communities upon those beliefs. However, for stories to become powerful, the capacity for empathy among people must be presumed. They gain strength when similar backgrounds, comparable experiences, and emotional textures connect. Humans understand the world through stories. If someone's life story is smooth, we cannot easily become immersed. It is Patjwi's mother's mistreatment that makes Kongjwi's life more vivid, and it is Nolbu's spite in tormenting Heungbu that allows us to emotionally invest in that story. Trials, conflicts, and twists bring narratives to life, and the power of story is ultimately completed when we feel together.
Albert Camus said human life is fundamentally absurd. The world does not guarantee meaning in life as we expect, nor does effort necessarily return as reward. Yet he neither despaired nor resigned himself. In "The Myth of Sisyphus," Sisyphus climbs the mountain again even knowing the boulder will roll back down. Within that awareness of repetition, humans obtain dignity. The women in those YouTube stories are no different. They could not escape the world's absurdity. Yet they struggled not to collapse until the very end. The reason we are moved is because of that repeated will to cook rice, to choose another day, even in places where one could only crumble.
Artificial intelligence (AI) also writes novels, produces videos, and creates virtual characters. Beings with perfect faces and smooth narratives are generated in seconds. But narrative gains weight only when traces of failure and the responsibility of choices accumulate within the time a human has lived through. The same is true for art. Great works gain the power of story only when their form connects with what era and what suffering they passed through—just as the paintings of Lee Jung-seop, who lived through war, and the verses of Yun Dong-ju carry human warmth within them. No matter how sophisticated AI becomes, its narratives are merely "possible combinations of emotion." This is because it cannot create the memory of having paid the price of wounds, or the responsibility for irreversible choices.
If asked about future competitiveness, I cannot speak only of speed or efficiency. Rather, the time spent bearing slow, imperfect, and irreversible choices may hold greater persuasive power. A scarred face is remembered longer than a perfect image because that face testifies to the time it has passed through. Only time that never collapsed creates a human face.