“If censoring your thoughts is the job of the public spectacle, 

Showing what I wrote to the public feels closer to an autopsy.” 

The words of Moon Sang-hoon, 

for whom words are the hardest to say, but also what he loves the most

The author of the book, Moon Sang-hoon, says that at some point he found himself ”thinking too much even before saying the smallest things even now and then.” Since one sees and hears too many things in life, it has truly become “more and more harder to get any words out.” Indeed, our words are a double-edged sword: the more convenient it has become to communicate, the easier it has become to be misunderstood. After all, we have all misunderstood or been misunderstood at one point or another.

A lover of literature since childhood, Moon even went so far as to “obsessively avoid writing of any kind.” This is because writing takes even more courage than speaking the words out. What drew him to face writing again, and to begin writing, then? Moon says he realized that he loved writing so much nonetheless and felt like “no plants were budding” inside his heart when he stayed away from writing. This led him to pursue writing fiercely for about two years, eventually leading to this book, To Decide Not to Misunderstand What I’ve Said.

The author states there was a realization that came upon finishing the book: it was he who misunderstood his own words the most. And just as the title of this book suggests, he promises himself “not to misunderstand what I say” anymore. After facing the real “me,” he finally finds the courage to accept himself as he is. 

“Some may be worm-eaten or have become too ripe.

But they were all raised with my own soil and dirt – I serve them to you even before I’ve had the chance to wash them.”

The rough but honest words of someone

may become mirrors for others to reflect on themselves

Author Moon Sang-hoon once used to learn “what makes people laugh during the day, and what is trending during the night.” What he learned back in those days while avoiding his parents’ nagging might be what makes BDNS shine even more. Moon Sang-hoon is always smiling in the videos we see on a day-to-day basis. However, this book allows readers to take a glimpse at the expressions hidden beneath those smiles – the tense anxiety of constantly censoring his own words, the crisp innocence of always wanting to stay a boy, and the face that flushes red in front of everything he admires. 

Strangely enough, seeing his depiction of his wide array of expressions would make readers wonder about the expressions of their own. Perhaps the first thing we need to do to find the “real me,” just like Moon Sang-hoon in his book, is to look closely at our own expressions – knowing what we look like and the thoughts that wander in our minds when we are sad, happy, lonely, or melancholic. 

The sentences of his thoughts, which he mooned over for endless nights, feel so much like our own. But instead of stopping at that, we also look into ourselves to see just how and where we resemble them. Obviously, what we see is not a mirror but a book, and the reflection of Moon Sang-hoon’s face – but this is precisely why we feel like we’ve seen our “own faces” after closing the final page of the book. In this way, we see ourselves through others to become the real “me.”