Savage Words: In the end, we all just want the same thing

As you read this, I’m in South Korea. 

Jerry Garcia wasn’t wrong: What a long, strange trip it’s been. 

The flight to Seoul from the central United States is a tough one, especially on a 55-year-old body. Two decades ago, my job took me to Japan on four different occasions. That was on a mid-30s year-old body, and it was a tough flight then.

I knew going to South Korea and the 14-hour flight that ensued from Minneapolis to Seoul was going to be hard last week.

It was.

When I lived in Seattle several years ago, my job took me to New York a few times a year. That flight was five hours, and I dreaded it every time. Five hours on a domestic flight drove me crazy.

When I flew from Minneapolis to Seoul last week, I felt relieved when I saw we were nine hours into the trip with just five hours to go. And then it hit me: We still had the Seattle-to-New York leg yet to go. That was depressing, and painful. 

Literally, painful.

My legs continued to seize up, my butt was as numb as an eager root canal patient’s mouth-in-waiting, and my patience was running thin.

But I was able to gut it out, and I eventually got off the plane and made my way through customs in Seoul. About two hours later, I crashed, and truly sank into my hotel bed in Seoul’s Gangnam district.

South Korea is 14 hours ahead of the United States’ Central Time Zone. Naturally, it takes a day or so to get your sea legs under you so you can function at a normal level during daylight hours.

But after I came out of my 24-hour slumber of indeed getting acclimated to the new time zone, I ventured out into Seoul. I didn’t notice this before when I visited Japan 20 years ago, but it was abundantly clear this time when I was in South Korea: In the end, we all just want the same thing.

Perhaps it's 20 more birthdays under my belt that has made me a little more wise. This time around in southeast Asia, I saw more in common with the people I was in proximity with.

My first day in Seoul, I took an Uber to my first stop. The gentleman who picked me up from the front of the hotel knew ZERO English. I know ZERO Korean. But, I showed him my phone of where I needed to go. He smiled, opened the door, and I got into the back seat.

The trip was about 45 minutes. The driver had a Korean radio station playing, understandably. I didn’t understand a word they said. It was just noise, people talking. But at the end of every 60-second conversation, I recognized something: Laughter. Laughter was something familiar to me, and even though I didn’t know what they were saying, the laughter did indeed make me smile.

The following day, I went to the swimming pool at my hotel. Again, I had no idea what people were saying. But, I sat there next to the water, watching, observing, and having a cocktail, which, I’ve found, is something else many of us have in common.

I zeroed in on a young Asian couple with their two children in a kiddy pool. The dad was with his son, probably about 10 years old. He was showing him different ways to hold his breath, to slap a Boogie Board just the right way to make a big splash.

The mother was with her daughter, probably three or four years of age. She held her child in the pool, showing her different ways to manipulate the water and learn to swim.

When the couple was finished, it looked very similar to an American tradition. The dad picked up the Boogie Boards, the goggles, the sun screen and the pool toys. The mother wrapped her two children in oversized towels, and wiped the snot out of the little boy’s nose to his displeasure.

It occurred to me that even though I was 6,000 miles away from Brandon, the same ritual occurs almost daily at the pool in Aspen Park. Moms and dads, taking care of their children.

In the end, we all want the same thing. No doubt that young couple in Seoul wants to take care of their children, as do I. They want to provide for their family, as do I. They want to protect their family, as do I.

Nothing can change that. Politics, border lines, social opinions and global viewpoints will never change the ingrained nature of human beings, no matter what they look like or sound like. We all just want the same thing.

Ironically, as I got onto the elevator after visiting the pool, a song was playing as I made my way back up to my room. It was by the BoDeans, and the irony will never be lost on me.

Everybody wants to live how they wanna live

Everybody wants to love how they wanna love

Everybody wants to be closer to free