How Much of Your Life Will You Barter?

A True Trade

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With Steem Park finally finished, I've finally got a bit more head space to re-explore the things that get my thoughts churning in the morning – comics. No no, not superheroes or other casual diversions. I'm specifically talking about Baejinsoo's Friday Tales, one of the most successful Webtoons of the new century.

For those who have never seen this incredible artist's work, most Koreans will attest that his comics are unusual. They're not becoming or attractive at all – according to the author, it is due to his condition of having prosopagnosia, the same as Chuck Close, which prevents someone from being able to recognize faces. Basejinsoo's illustrations are simple, dull, and haunting. They almost always breach a taboo discussion such as suicide and mental health. The stories are always meant to incite self-investigating thought and although short, leave you with a pulling feeling in your gut.

Among the dozens of concise illustrated stories, this one stands out to me as most compelling and I chose it in particular to share with the every-growing Steemit community.

Life at a Cost?

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The premise is fairly simple. A young average Korean man returns to his apartment one evening when he notices an unusual door at the end of the public entryway. Hanging on it is a sign demarcating a “Trading Room.” Upon entrance, he is met by a mysterious man(?) sitting at a table who explains that the young individual can have anything he wants in exchange for a portion of his lifespan.

A car for … A girlfriend for...

The unremarkable protagonist immediately begins to calculate how much of his life he would have to give away in order to live the rest of his life without work or worry.

SPOILER ALERT

Longer story short, the young man loses all of his money (through a tragic ordeal that in turn causes him to shorten his life) and returns to the Trading Room asking for another sum.

The mysterious individual refuses, claiming that the tradee had little more of this life to give away. He then begins to explain of how wasteful it was to just trade for money. Many before him have traded years for a talent or expertise and with that uniqueness, build respectable and lucrative careers and lifestyles. A simple transaction for money was not only unspectacular, but unproductive and ultimately a counter-intuitive choice.

What Are You Paying For?

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The ending with the protagonist's abrupt death will be of little surprise but the premise of the story has stayed with me consistently through the last year. It seems the seeds of compelling discussion to consider your time as “payment in life.” From a simple understanding of the story, it seems to me that Baejinsoo considers the average job to be a simple transaction of life for money. We work enough at another's company in order to gain enough to live without too much worry. After the full payment of time (and life) is made, we have few more years to live.

On the other hand, the mysterious man puts an alternative in perspective. Many (though far fewer) of us humans pay with our years in order to become masterful or highly knowledgeable at something. With that skill, whether it be a hand at concert pianism or an expertise in cancer cell-growth or an early grasp on blockchain technology, it usually works out so the more life we pay, the more capable we are at leveraging that skill for reputation and profit throughout the rest of our lives. While the protagonist did a straightforward transaction of 1 day = X dollars, the analogy of the story really hits home of rethinking how we use/pay with that day.

So what do you think? What have you paid for with your life until now?