치킨 철학자 뉴욕에 가다

Jon vs John

Brooklyn before dawn. Sleep wouldn’t come, so I climbed to the roof and watched New York’s dim light bleed into the sky. In the distance, an ambulance wailed. The air smelled faintly of greasy pizza.

In my hand, an old notebook. On one page, a line I’d written years ago:
“The moment existence receives a name, it loses its uselessness.”

I murmured to myself, “My name is Yoo Jon-jae. I was born with existence stamped into me. But lately… that name feels more like a cage than a promise.”

Zhuangzi’s words returned to me:
“The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

And then I remembered what my roommate John had joked earlier in the day:

“Hey, Jon. Cool name. Sounds like someone destined to exist.”

The line had comforted me. And yet — I wondered if I wasn’t already trapped inside that name.

I flipped through the notebook again and saw a Buddhist phrase I’d copied long ago:

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”

The city roared beneath me — lights flashing, noise rushing. Existence, I thought, comes before names and continues after them. It always lingers on the threshold.

“Maybe my real existence lies beyond the name,” I whispered.

I remembered the first day I wrote my English name: Jon.

Same sound, different feeling. The strangeness of it forced me to look deeper into myself.

I wrote it again now: J-O-N.

And beneath it: “Existence does not need a name. But some days, a name is what lifts me back up.” A double face — name as prison, name as ladder.

That evening in the kitchen, I had been heating chicken breast while John pulled toast from the stubborn toaster.

“Hey, Jon. Your toast is ready,” he said.

I grinned. “Which Jon? Me or you?”

He bit into bread and laughed.

“Your name is Jon, mine is John. You’re like my mirror image with a philosophy degree. Or maybe my Korean doppelgänger.”

We laughed together.
“But isn’t it strange,” I said, “that we share a name but live opposite lives?”

He brushed crumbs off his shirt.
“I fix broken toasters. You question whether toasters exist.”

In that moment I realized: the man called John lived far more usefully than I did. While I, branded with ‘existence,’ felt almost invisible.

“Maybe you’re the real Jon,” I said.

He shrugged.
“Maybe we’re just two versions of the same confusion. One grills chicken, the other grills thoughts.”

He wagged his fingers playfully, tracing my initials.
“Yoo Jon-jae? Sounds like a mouthful of philosophy. My name, John — it’s just a McDonald’s value meal.”

I shot back with a smile.
“But Zhuangzi said the useless tree lives longest. If your name is useful, it’ll be consumed quickly. Mine might at least endure.”

John lowered the toaster lever and nodded.
“Alright, so I’m fast food, and you’re the old tree in the backyard. Bro, that’s practically a rap verse.”

Then, in a mock Korean accent, he stretched my name like a chant:
“Yoo~~ Jon~~ jae! Man, you sound like a K-drama lead. Or maybe the new philosopher member of BTS.”

I laughed.
“No, I’m just a failed chicken-shop owner. My stage isn’t a drama — it’s a frying pan.”

We both burst out laughing. Outside, sirens tangled with hip-hop beats in the night air.

And I thought: a name is only a tag. Jon or John, philosophy or chicken — living is nothing more than learning your own recipe.

Some cook life with a toaster, some with a frying pan, others with words and silence. The method doesn’t matter. What matters is that life cooks, somehow.

John pointed out the window.
“See those lights? Starbucks, Dunkin’, Taco Bell. Without the names, they’d just be lights. But the signs give people a reason to run toward them.”

I studied the neon glow.
“Yes. A sign shows the way, but it blinds too. Names are the same —sometimes they guide, sometimes they shackle.”

John chuckled.
“Bro, names don’t matter. What matters is — chicken hot, beer cold. That’s it.”

I whispered back,
“True. A name can never hold my existence. But laughter can lift the weight for a moment.”

John grinned.
“Don’t worry, man. Existence may not fit in a name, but it fits in a chicken bucket.”

We laughed again, and the city lights spilled across our laughter like a second neon sky.