October 4, 2025

This is the sign on the wall of the apartment where we are staying in Seoul, South Korea. A constant reminder that your environment is shaped by how you feel.

Seoul is a megacity…and a busy one. Seoul is the largest city proper in the developed world. Seoul’s population density is almost twice that of New York City, four times higher than Los Angeles and eight times higher than the density of Rome. My wife is a city girl, and I’ve always wondered how she has maintained her mellow mood growing up in a city where half of all the residents in the country live.

After spending more than a month navigating the streets of Seoul, I think I have an idea.

Seoul was destroyed during the Korean War, so this was a society that through dire circumstances got the unique opportunity to rebuild itself from the bottom up. We measure a society not by what was destroyed, but by what they built. 

Art is what we build. I might even argue that art isn’t the byproduct of a good society; art is its function.

I don’t think about art as fundamental in our American culture because we’ve been taught to value commerce and consumption over creativity. The artist is, generally, thought of as a foolish dreamer, somebody destined to be a drag on what really matters– the economy.

That is not true in South Korea and that is especially not true in Seoul.

Art is the scaffolding upon which they build their days.

And Nature is used as Art in Seoul.

Let me give you a few examples.

Outside our apartment is a small sitting park for lack of a better description. Gathering spots like this can be found all over Seoul. I cannot remember a time when I walked by this park and did not find someone sitting there. Now out of curiosity I waited and watched how long people gathered. The average time was about ten to fifteen minutes.

I’m very good at creating structure for myself but structure isn’t easily exported from place to place. What works for me in Winter Springs, Florida works less well for me when I’m traveling the world. Not sure why that is, other than structure works hand-in-hand with purpose and, if you don’t have a defined purpose, you might find you have less structure. When you have more purpose, structure tends to emerge organically.

I’ve just come to realize it is probably one of the reasons I write these blogs. Writing holds me accountable to report to you what I’m learning.

I am convinced these parks do the same thing for Koreans. Nature is used as a structure to remind people that in a busy megacity there is still time to stop and be reflective. Even for just ten to fifteen minutes.

Let me give you another example.

Downtown Seoul is the home to many corporate headquarters Samsung, LG Electronics and Hyundai among them. Yet smack dap in the middle of these corporate headquarters are fields of wildflowers.

I feel certain that in most cities these lots would create bidding wars for new prime real estate. Not so in Seoul. Among the hustle and bustle of commerce there is a subtle reminder to stop and smell the roses or in this case the wildflowers.

The irony is that having more free time actually makes us less productive. This is, no doubt, true for most people. Unstructured time, and lots of it, tends to dampen our creativity rather than enhance it. Long, idle days which could be spent conjuring new ideas are instead spent watching YouTube.

Didn’t some of you experience this during the pandemic?

So, it seems to me that those who live in Seoul have found a nice mix between being productive and living in balance. And this continues to be an ongoing process.

This past week Chongae and I attended The Seoul Architecture Biennale. The theme was Radically More Human. The intent of the biennale was to continue to build structures that speak to a human connection between old and new. Here’s a photo of Chongae standing next to a modern art piece that used ancient kimchi pot covers as part of the installation.

A nice combination of old and new.

Thanks for traveling with us.