The more different. Author Choi Jae-cheon | arte | 2017.11.15. Pages 252 | ISBN 9788950972448 | Format: irregular/variant. The more different, the more beautiful and special the world is. And so it is interesting.
Why must we all be the same? Must we hold the same ideology and have the same thoughts and behaviors? If we think differently from others, look different, or behave differently, must we be criticized and keep our heads down? Nature pursues freedom and pursues difference like this, with each enjoying its own life, so since when did our society come to perceive difference as "wrongness"?
The author weaves the behaviors of animals and plants in the form of short essays and adds his own humanistic views. Reaching even into painting, literature, and history, although he is an ecologist, because he possesses broad experience and knowledge, he seems to look at one fact and think of many things.
"Spring": Although it is already May, around the time I began reading the book, all sorts of spring flowers like cherry blossoms and forsythia were in bloom. The festival of flowers that to me were simply beautiful and pretty seems to have looked different to his eyes. To one who knows, there must have been much more to see. It is a fact I did not know that even after the spring flowers fall and the flower bed feels a bit empty, no particular flowers bloom until the acacia flowers do.
He also speaks, through episodes, about the danger of changes in the environment and the destruction of biodiversity. Last summer, various natural disasters occurred due to heat or cold. There were places that took a serious blow to their lives from the rapid increase of pests. To coexist with nature, we must respect each other's territory and refrain from artificial change.
Even when the author discovered a rare species, he could not simply rejoice. Because if everyone started visiting them as if to "certify" them as a rare find, their habitats would soon be ruined. His likening of animal behaviors to the social roles of men and women was not easy to readily accept, and in truth there was a somewhat uncomfortable view there as well, but most of the author's stories lightly offer a chance to look at our surroundings once with a new gaze.
For example, ".. men will have it good. Especially because of the excessive preference for sons, the day does not seem far off when our parents, who had only piles of sons, will grab their son's wrist and head to plastic surgery clinics or cosmetics shops to be chosen by those few daughters.." and so on..
My rating is
7.5/10