Diary Story #2: Thematic Diaries

November 22, 2025 - By hyungwoop

Before I began my work journals in 1988, there was one quiet beginning—an unexpected gift that would shape the next four decades of my life.

In 1980, my father returned from an overseas business trip and handed me a yearly planner. It was a simple gesture, but for me, it marked the beginning of something profound. That year, I had just failed my first attempt at the university entrance exam and was preparing for a second try. I was 17 years and 7 months old—standing at the edge of disappointment, uncertainty, and a deep desire to understand myself better.

That planner became my first diary.

It wasn’t structured or intentional at first. I scribbled thoughts, tracked study hours, noted frustrations, and sometimes just doodled. But over time, the act of writing became a rhythm, a quiet companion through the turbulence of youth. I didn’t know it then, but I was laying the foundation for a lifelong habit of reflection.

The notebooks you see in this photo represent the thematic diaries I kept between 1980 and 2025. Each one holds a different thread of my early life:

Annual Diaries: 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1987 year
Sketchbooks & Art Journals:
Immigration Preparation Notes:
Avant Garde Meeting:
Visual Basic Debugging Logs:
Father School:
Rodem Tree Magazine Editing:
Dari Church Planting:
My Life – Wilderness:

Each of these notebooks will become a story of its own. I plan to share them as a separate series—snapshots of a young man learning to see the world through ink and paper.

This was the true beginning. Not with a career, not with a title, but with a pen, a planner, and a quiet promise to keep writing—wherever I live.