"Thou Shalt Not Create."
Childhood trauma, making a podcast, and withdrawing from the Korean University.
*For those who read the previous post: No, this isn’t written by ChatGPT. Just me and my coffee-induced brain typing away…
I was homeschooled for 8 years between 7 to 15. It was both the best and the worst thing that happened to me.
But this article isn’t about listing the best and the worst parts about homeschooling—(although it might be fun to write about that in the future.) It’s about one thing that happened to me during those years. I mean, it probably does sit in the “worst” list anyway.
It happened because my parents made friends with the wrong crowd—which, to be fair, I don’t blame them for because they also didn’t realize it at first.
The “crowd” was this particular homeschool co-op group that my family was a part of. For the first few years, it was my whole world—a school that taught me essential life skills, a society where I interacted with peers for the first time, and a playground on which I learned to express my budding creativity.
And I was an Energetic kid with a capital E. Running around the co-op venue, fighting with girls, making short movies starring my little brother, and opening weekly concerts for other families… this “high” spirit of mine, in hindsight, definitely needed some guidance.
But instead of guidance, what I received was condemnation from the leader-Mom of the group. And that slowly turned this co-op into a legalistic hell for my family, which is only something I retrospectively realized in my adulthood. The leader-Mom’s mission was clear: putting my energy “under control”. Her execution of that mission? Not so clear—but certainly brutal: she did it by killing my identity and creativity.
Let’s just say one of the lowest points of my childhood occurred because of her execution, on that day where she forced me to repeat—“I am a sinner. I’m a bad person.”—out loud for 15 minutes straight, in front of all the kids and parents in a circle, because she thought the 12-year-old Tae was too proud of himself. But I’m not talking about that moment today. I want to highlight this other moment that directly influenced my journey as a creative for a long time.
This happened during a period of time where a couple of co-op 12-year-olds and I were obsessed with creative writing. We were writing novels and screenplays for more than 5 hours daily, sharing our work with each other online. (As a result, I ended up writing a 300-page-long novel called “The Kids Who Fell into Black Hole”—a space opera where two Korean kids discover a whole new world inside the space-void.) It was a season where I LEARNED what my true passion is, setting my foot on a path. And as a 12-year-old dreamer, this was the most exciting thing in the world.
And the leader-Mom stepped into the picture. Apparently, she was not happy that I was getting “too attached" to writing, spending all my energy with it instead of studying the Bible. So one night, she proclaimed a decree by the name of “Writing Ban”, and convinced my mom and other moms to deliver and enforce it upon their kids the following morning.
I remember bursting into tears—it was just after breakfast—asking “But WHY?”. I was so close to finishing my space opera, and out of the blue, I was no longer even allowed to open the document file on the computer. To my question, repressing her own doubts, my mom repeated what the leader-Mom had told her: “if the kids retaliate to this new rule, it means they’re worshipping writing over God.”
[Just in case there’s anyone out there who might agree with what that leader said, let me clarify: no, the 12-year-old Tae wasn’t worshipping writing. My “retaliation” in the moment was a natural reaction to tasting stone-cold legalism clothed in the name of God, though I didn’t know how to word it back then. I was simply experiencing my world crumbling down, because an excitement for something that had formed for the first time in my life was nipped in the bud for some strange reason.]
Few years after we “escaped” the co-op group, my mom sincerely apologized for letting me and my brother grow up under such manipulation. But back in those days, the younger Tae just had to add the guilt of “idol worshipping” on his list—“the 95 reasons why I’m a bad person”—along with the devastation of having something precious taken away.
Look, I don’t mean to attribute all of the reasons for my “fear of creating” to this one moment. But it was definitely where it all started. Since that year, every time I wanted to create anything—this was long after my mom blocked the leader-Mom out of our lives—the effect of the Ban would remain, manifesting itself in my reactions. Feelings of guilt and fear would overpower the excitement of a new idea. I would freeze up.
Only time, the REAL Gospel(the one that tells you that you’re free from darkness), and countless journal entries helped me to identify the source and begin healing.
One of the best healings happened during my time with Logos Hope. Serving on that NGO ship as a theatre/performance director taught me so much about handling crippling doubts and worries during the process of brainstorming, writing, planning and executing. The fact that we as a creative team had a mission—engaging with local visitors through art and cultural performances—helped me to learn how to let this sense of responsibility guide my process, regardless of how I was “feeling”. I also learned how to trust my intuition as a writer while not letting people’s criticism stun my drive. It was a season I got to really wrestle with fear.
My drive continued even after I came back to Korea. So I made a short film—with 9 people I’ve gathered through online ads. During this project, and especially after completing it, I did feel fear. But it was a different kind from the one I felt back in homeschooling. It was no longer a fear about my identity. It was more a fear related to artistic perfectionism and work-related performance: “What if I can’t express everything that I want?” “What if my actress disrespects me? (real experience)” “What if no one likes this movie?”
Different kind—but still a fear. Still something I don’t want to be ruled by.
So the wrestling continues.
April, May, and June in London have given me more tangible opportunities to face and tackle fear. I started a podcast. It’s a Third Culture Kid Podcast called The Chameleon Club—again, an idea I had dismissed out of fear.
But one “giving it a go” led to another… here I am today—a day before my first two episodes being released on Spotify, with 190 followers on Instagram tuning in. May not be a big number for some, but it’s certainly way more than zero—which would’ve been the case if I had let that fear guide me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m still scared. I’m scared of what’s going to happen when the podcast finally goes up for everyone to listen to. I’m scared of completing the remaining deliverables strong before I have to leave London on July 25th.
But a few things are different now, compared to that helpless child who cried all night after his writing passion was “unallowed”.
A) I know where the fear comes from.
B) I know how to handle it (or at least pose for it).
C) I know I don’t have to do it alone.
Making life decisions is quite similar to starting a creative project. After all, you’re creating a path, committing to it, and have no idea what the outcome will be.
On this path laid out in front of me, I foresee at least 3 things that will make me afraid:
I’m leaving London in 25 days and moving back into my parents’ place in Korea. It scares me because Korean culture is just not my jazz, and living with my parents makes me feel like a teenager.
I’m going to be looking into ways I can generate income online—freelancing, essentially. It scares me because although I’ve decided that this is the best fit for me, the world of freelancing is too vast and I haven’t got much knowledge.
I’m going to study at an online university instead of a traditional one! I know, I was accepted to George Mason University Korea, but because of some reasons that I personally felt convicted about, I’ve decided to withdraw my application. Will be talking more about this in my next post…
What’s silly about these three fear factors, however, is that no one ever forced these things upon me. Every single one of them was thought of, planned, and executed because I wanted to.
Here’s another silly thing: I actually go through with these paths just fine once things start rolling. It’s always the pre-thinking and pre-imagination that really freeze me up. Some say the distance between where you are and your goal equals the distance between your bed to your desk. I believe it.
Let me leave you with one last silly thing to think about: what if some people… including myself here… sort of “liked” fearing? Hear me out. If most of the things we worry about (especially trying something new) often end up turning out okay, probability suggests that the next thing we try or start might also turn out okay.
But so many of us like to think the worst case scenario, which makes us linger in that awkward zone of “wanting to do it but not starting”(making us say things like “yeah, I would love to, but…” or “I’m not sure if it’s gonna work”, or “I’m still in the brainstorming stage. Stop stressing me out!”)
And maybe, some people, and often myself, like to make a home in that grey.