What seems like no end in sight

By Park Gi-hyun Park Gi-hyun Patience is vital but sometimes an evasive virtue when persistently negative conditions would deter us from imagining better days ahead. Continuing unfavorable events have often driven us to exhaustion as they do not seem to abate. Some of the current global and domestic challenges appear to have no end in sight.

Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are seemingly ceaseless. I still vividly remember the moment when I first heard about the outbreak of the wars, which was actually a long time ago. At first, the horrors of the war gripped me with fear and caught my attention repeatedly.



As the wars stay with us for many months, I have become insensitive to terrible news from the war zones. Recently, thousands of Israelis took to the streets to express their anger at Netanyahu’s protracted negotiations, mourning the recent death of six hostages. This news really frightened me because one of the killed hostages was Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

He was the symbol of Israel in captivity due to his courageous and steadfast parents, who had been vocal about the release of hostages since the start of the war. With daily struggles to stay alive, hunger and infectious diseases have trapped civilians, and their hope for a better future is diminishing. Despite these hardships, sadly, the fighting does not show signs of ending anytime soon.

In Korea, we are experiencing a new wave of COVID-19, which has long plagued us since 2020. Nowadays, I regularly receive the government’s emergency mobile alerts urging me to keep safe from infection amid a spike in cases. Staying indoors to avoid heat resulted in speeding up virus transmission and prompting worries of another awful outbreak.

Fortunately, a story published in The Korea Times on Aug. 28 excerpted a quote from health authorities that this infectious disease is estimated to have passed its peak, with the weekly number of the virus’ inpatients dropping 20 percent last week. As the World Health Organization defines COVID-19 as a continuing pandemic, I should admit that the virus will never go away.

The fact that the contagious disease will surely linger beyond prompts me to do my part every day to ward off disease as long as possible. This year, we have directly experienced the longest streak of tropical nights, a phenomenon when the night temperature never falls below 25 degrees Celsius overnight. I had to resort to air conditioning through the night for many days, wondering when I could sleep well without it.

Although I normally endure heat well, the last few nights were unbearably hot. As it proves, the state weather agency said we had the longest number of hot nights, which far exceeded the usual record. Thankfully, the nighttime has become moderately cool early this month, even though the daytime temperatures are still high.

I see the end of sweltering nights, but I carefully expect this phenomenon to come back at this time of year since we are destined to experience more negative effects of global warming. Indeed, wars, diseases and unusual weather will remain perpetually for a while. The writer (faith0906@gmail.

com) is keen to explore the world outside the office and loves to weave a story of our daily lives..