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Part 11. The Birth of the Revolution
The heavens must have been preparing me for this all along.
1. 3 Hells
In my lifetime, I have walked into both hell and heaven — by my own will.
● Hell
At the Age of 18, In 1979
I chose night college on my own.
The city’s No.2 student entered the lowest-ranked university.
And then, I volunteered to work at the bottom of a coal mine.
At 20,
I was abducted by a military dictatorship. Ashamed of my failure to resist, I planned to assassinate the dictator and take my own life.
It was the first and last time my free will was violated by coercive state power. It was illegal.
I survived—and more than that, I was prepared to risk my life to completely eliminate murderous beatings in my platoon. After that, I transformed it into a place of joy, where everyone spent their free time reading books and playing Go. My platoon members truly followed me from the heart. That was what a real army should be.
Daily beatings that led to murder and suicide had been deeply rooted in 38 years of brutal military tradition. No one had ever dared to challenge it. I was the first to do so since the founding of the army. I turned the hell into the heaven.
At 39,
It wasn’t just a gamble—it was all-in on my life.
I took the risk, because the fear of regret outweighed the fear of failure.
I believed it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Even if I failed, I’d still be in my 40s. I’d still have time to rise again.
That was my final hope.
● Heaven
Everything outside of hell.
Now I see—
Hell was the training ground that toughened me.
2. A Dream Fulfilled After 48 Years
“A man’s got to play big.”
To me, challenge means:
Purpose – Testing the limits of my abilities
Means of Achievement – What makes me different
Result – Success or failure is just part of the process
Each challenge wasn’t isolated—it was a stepping stone to the next.
The first taught me ambition.
The second, resilience.
The third—it pushes me past the limits of everything I thought I knew.
ㅡㅡㅡ
Looking back, I realize I aimed at the world three times.
● At the Age of 23, In 1984
I decided to join a major corporation with two clear goals:
Grow the company 100-fold in the global market.
Become its CEO before the age of 50 to make that happen.
I spent three years preparing. I spent three years preparing.
I had two college majors, since I attended two universities—International Trade and English Literature.
I also minored in Business Administration.
Self-taught.
I reached intermediate level in accounting.
I studied spoken English intensively for three years, along with beginner-level Japanese and just the basics of Chinese.
My main focus was English conversation, the true global language—
because without the ability to speak, nothing else matters.
It was all part of my preparation to reach a goal. At that time, if somebody graduated from the English Literature department of one of the top universities, major companies would compete to hire him. Strict preparation like mine wasn’t even necessary. But I did it anyway.
Every day, I did 20 push-ups and 40 squats. That was the bare minimum. Ever since I learned Taekwondo at 12, I had done it for 40 years.
After working for ten years, I concluded that under the seniority system, I’d have to wait until around 60 to become CEO. So, I decided to quit and become a CEO on my own. A week later, an executive from the HR team that reported directly to the chairman of the group my company belonged to called me. He said I had been selected as a future executive under a newly launched leadership program—and urged me to return immediately. I answered, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why keep it secret?” When that didn’t work, he came back the next day:
"You can move to any company in the group you want." That didn’t move me either, so the next day he said: "Choose any department you like. You’ve done sales and import. Now go to finance and learn more," he added. "But isn’t corporate finance in a large company mostly about borrowing money from banks?" I said. I declined. Finally, he pleaded, "If you leave, I’ll be held accountable by the chairman." It had already been a week of this back-and-forth. I had to cut it off. "Then tell the chairman exactly what I said," I told him. "That should cover you." “Choose: a two-level special promotion or double the salary.” It was a company that valued harmony over competition.
To fulfill my duties as the eldest son of baby boomer family, I started my own business in my hometown.
● At 39, in the Year 2000—the Dawn of a New Milennium
I decided to launch an internet venture.
For a year prior, four of us prepared together, completing a new business model for internet-driven distribution. In March, I founded the company in Seoul as CEO. I had two bold goals:
Dominate the global distribution market.
To achieve that, increase revenue tenfold every three years—from $300,000, $3 million, $30 million, $300 million, $3 billion, $30 billion, $300 billion. By 2021, I would be 61.
In April, just two months in, we hit our first milestone. We were close to finalizing the core structure of the business. Next month came Black Monday in May. I had anticipated the internet bubble and built a profit-first business model from the start. It was the opportunity I had been waiting for—but we were swept away by a massive tsunami. Six years later, the company went bankrupt. I was left with $1 million in debt, including interest. It took me ten years to repay it all. The lessons from that journey are etched into my bones.
● At 64, in the Year 2025—The Birth Revolution
This time, it’s neither a reform nor an innovation. It’s a revolution.
The theory is complete. The golden hour has already passed. This is no longer about prevention—it’s about survival. Fate gave me no choice. It drove me to lead the revolution. Now, I must save my nation and my people. Two goals carved by destiny.
1. Achieve a national birthrate of 2.1, now and for generations to come.
2. Amend the Constitution.
To do that, I must become president and secure a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
The theory of The Birth Revolution is complete.
That alone is success.
Execution? It’s not just mine to carry—it’s both a shared opportunity and a shared obligation for all of us.
The first two were acts of determination.
The third—The Birth Revolution—was a discovery.
Here’s an interesting twist:
The first time I dreamed of changing the world, I was in Seoul.
But the next two times, I was in Gangwon Province.
What’s more, the third time, I’m just a retired old man.
But now I have the internet, smartphones, and it's the age of AI.
That’s what makes this possible.
Today, the world is one—wherever I am, whatever my age.
As long as I have dreams.
ㅡㅡㅡ
● At 16, in 1977
"A man’s got to play big."
I told a close friend as I was choosing my path.
That was it.
From that moment on, I danced between heaven and hell.
I had chosen the humanities—not science.
Secretly, I began studying the humanities—something forbidden to science-track students—without my homeroom teacher’s knowledge. When I moved up to my final year of high school, my homeroom teacher said to me, “Based on the overall academic record, you’re ranked second in the entire school.” It was a class of elites—handpicked from across the city.
At the same time, I was assigned by the school to serve as student council president.
A black belt in taekwondo, the toughest kid in school—yet chosen to lead them all.
Although it was a role given to me, I took it seriously, even while pursuing my secret studies.
I’ve always thought and decided on my own, never discussing my decisions with anyone.
The boy ranked first—accepted into the top medical school in the country—died of leukemia during his first year.
I said that when I was sixteen.
Now, I’ve outgrown even my imagination.
That was the very beginning of The Birth Revolution today.
It was clear: The heavens must have been preparing me for this all along.
3. Fiction Becomes Reality
Summer of 2023. Three close friends at a bar. Half-drunk, I drop a political comment for fun. We keep it civil, but tensions stir slightly. Always the same.
Why should politics break friendships—just because of being a leftist or rightist?
Then suddenly—what about upist?
What if I looked down, from above right and left?
“Guys, from today, I’m Wipa. Upist.”
“What’s that?”
“Above leftist and rightist. I will look down from above them.”
“Does that even exist?”
“It does now. I just made it up. From now on, I’m neither leftist nor rightist. I’m upist.”
“…???”
It's much better. Calmer. More objective. A few more drinking nights like that, and I thought—
Let's see. If I made the upist party, as the party leader, why not do what neither leftist nor rightist could? Only one.
October. The media explodes. YouTube, too. South Korea’s birthrate: 0.72. The worst in the world. But why? Dating, marriage, childbirth—aren’t they natural instincts? Alright. Let upist party fix this. That’s how I was interested in low birthrate first.
It all started as fiction—through the eyes of a president. But reality hit hard. A birthrate 0.7? Is 1.0 normal? One generation later, population drops by 30%. We're in a big crisis! But then I found out the replacement rate is 2.1. What? I looked it up! It was true. Still, I couldn’t believe it. I checked again. And again. But it was real. One generation, and we lose two-thirds. From 51 million to 17 million. Then I discovered something even more terrifying: it's continuous. Irreversible. to 6 million, to 2 million…
That day, my old life ended. And a completely new one began.
Since then, I’ve been throwing everything I have into solving this.
4. Real-Time Chronicles
This book is just Volume One — the real-time chronicles have only just begun.
I will keep writing until The Birth Revolution is complete by 2032.
All my writings are available on my website and open to all.
5. The Singularity Explosion
Explosion of thought. Explosion of writing. Explosion of self.
The singularity explosion exploded while writing The Birth Revolution.
● Before Retirement
A constant stream of challenges.
Ceaseless absorption of information.
● 9 Years into Retirement
New mindset.
1. The “Health–Money–Time” principle:
Stay healthy, earn just $1,000 a month, and use the rest of my time for myself.
2. Turning targets of challenge into values:
First: purity. Then: saving my nation and my people.
3. Thought-play — my own way of enjoying philosophy.
Through it, I was finally able to answer two questions after seven years:
Who am I?
What is happiness?
By practicing my own philosophy, my life found order—
and I found a philosophy to live by.
The decisive reason I found the solution to the birthrate crisis is that I finally answered the question: What is happiness?
The root cause of low birthrate is a problem of happiness.
How can humanity hope to solve the low birthrate crisis if it doesn’t even understand happiness?
4. Exploring global history and human lives by country
I have come to realize—
our country, our people are truly unique.
Until then, I believed that human lives were mostly the same across the world.
But that’s not quite true.
Take language and mindset, for example:
Koreans often say “our country,” “our people,” even “our wife”—
where others might say “my country,” “my people,” or “my wife.”
This is not just about words.
It reflects a deep-rooted culture, a collective identity born from history.
In a land surrounded by powerful nations,
“we” was how we survived.
“We” was how we stood together through every crisis.
Unity is not an abstract ideal here.
It’s a living legacy.
How rare is it today,
that 50 million people speak one language, share one history, and remain a single ethnic group?
It’s not just unusual—it’s nearly unheard of.
5. Writing
All of the above—everything about me.
Around 1,900 writings. 49 volumes.
Thoughts scatter, but writings accumulate and sort themselves.
My thoughts have grown broader and deeper.
I have been writing The Birth Revolution — a body of work that began on November 1st, 2023, and quite unexpectedly grew into 500 writings across 11 books, now distilled into a single volume.
The Birth Revolution:
11 Parts. 63 Chapters.
Condensed from 11 books and 500 writings into one volume.
One book per part. Eight writings per chapter.
A revolutionary book. A book of thought. A book of philosophy.
Framed by myth — arms wide open from beginning to end.
It closes with a single poem "the age of death" piercing through the entire work.
No pretense — each part plays a clear and vital role.
Thus, it achieves both mythic narrative and literary depth.
There is no fixed format for my writing.
Sometimes it’s an essay, other times a research paper or a report.
It can take the shape of an epic hero’s journey, a poem, a narrative, a dialogue, a vivid description, or even an aphorism.
The form follows the content, adapting as needed.
There’s no set mold that can hold it all in a single volume.
There is no other book like this.
Because there is no other human like this.
AI joins the effort near the end.
Two months into the English translation.
Twelve hours a day, without a haliday.
I absorb its knowledge.
It confirms the place and potential of me and my book.
I must be crazy.
Sixty-four years of life exploded in a single book.
What kind of bizarre singularity is this for an old nobody? Hahaha.
One book creates a person.
Aside.
I didn’t read books.
Too busy experimenting with life.
No room to listen to others.
ㅡㅡㅡ
While writing The Birth Revolution, I hit a singularity.
A revolutionary, of all things.
A thinker, a philosopher.
A writer, a poet—and a free spirit.
Openly, I now proclaim: this is who I am.
And yet, I am not who I was.
Unimaginable, just a year and a half ago.
Let’s break it down:
1. Challenging the highest form among the three levels:
Improvement, innovation, and revolution.
2. To do so, deploying the full arsenal of challenge tools:
Creativity, reverse thinking, paradigm shifts.
3. Mobilizing every ounce of life experience and wisdom —
with philosophy at its foundation.
4. Integrating knowledge from all domains —
politics, economy, society, culture, education, defense, diplomacy, daily life...
both domestic and global.
● The Birth Revolution is insight.
Challenge is foresight.
Even if it doesn’t begin that way, it changes me—and so, in the end, it becomes foresight.
Thus, the proposition holds true.
The more frequent the challenge, the sharper the foresight becomes.
Why? Because failure must be reduced to the bare minimum.
Greater challenges demand greater foresight.
A life-risking challenge calls for desperate foresight.
A challenge is the act of foreseeing the future based on past experience,
changing the present accordingly, and thereby changing the future.
The more frequent and intense the challenge, the stronger the foresight becomes.
Challenge is my life.
Foresight has become instinct through countless experiences.
Foreseeing the future has become second nature.
I foresee the future based on the past of low birthrate,
change the present accordingly,
and thereby change the future.
If foresight that sees through is called insight,
then through The Birth Revolution, I have seen the past, present, and future of humanity.
I created The Birth Revolution by seeing through humanity’s timeline—
past, present, and future.
Through The Birth Revolution, my singularity exploded—everything changed.
● What a coincidence!
However, nothing was a coincidence.
6. A New Name Card
At the age of 64,
I never imagined I would create a new kind of name card.
Especially not one printed on paper.
And especially not one where I boldly call myself — first and foremost — a revolutionary.
A thinker, too.
But above all, a revolutionary.
I am a free spirit.
It took me 64 years to finally say it out loud.
It's because I have lived as a challenger all my life.
Only now do I realize—all those challenges were my way of seeking freedom.
It is thanks to my final and greatest challenge, The Birth Revolution.
Those titles were not given to me.
It is the one I gave myself.
This card is not for distribution.
It is for just two people:
for myself — to give me courage,
and for one man — Elon Musk.
Anyone may read my words online.
But this card, this small piece of paper,
will be held only by the two of us.
It is not for business.
It is for meaning.
It is for history.
Only Two Name Cards in the World
No Si-Kyun
The Birth Revolution
Saving Families, Nations, and Humanity
Saving South Korea, Europe, and the World with Elon Musk
Revolutionary
Thinker (Happiness Capitalism) | Philosopher (Philosophical Methodology)
Writer | Poet | Free Spirit
1961 Born
49 Books | 1,900 Writings
Epic : Life and Revolution
Website: https://brunch.co.kr/@sknohs
Email: sknohs@hanmail.net
Phone: +82 (0)10-5372-6550
7. Creative Terminology and Definitions
Language expands thought.
A definition is better than an essay.
I defined "Today, Birth Is a Revolution." after more than 71 writings, and "Today, Birth Is Philosophy." after more than 23. To my surprise, I later did: "The Birth Revolution Is Modified Capitalism." I named it Happiness Capitalism during the final editing stage of the Korean edition. What matters most: I gave all of it a name — The Birth Revolution — as a proper noun like The French Revolution, and as the banner of a new age.
For example,
The Birth Revolution
Birth is a revolution.
Birth is philosophy.
The Birth Revolution is a Happiness Revolution.
The Birth Revolution is a Peace and Freedom Revolution.
The Birth Revolution is a Humanities Revolution.
The Birth Revolution is Happiness Capitalism.
The Birth Revolution is Modified Capitalism.
WIPA, Upist, Upism, Birthtopia...
Definition of The Birth Revolution. A revolution that raises the birth rate to 2.1 at a stroke—the level required to sustain the population—for the survival and prosperity of the nation and its people, as well as the well-being of its citizens.
8. 3 Differences Between the West and the East
Dream, life, death.
● The Birth Revolution Begins with Philosophy.
Today, birth is philosophy.
The low birthrate crisis began in the West and spread to the East.
It has been — and will continue to be — impossible to solve,
because neither side understands this truth.
● 3 Differences
1. dream
■ The West
Boys, be ambitious.
■ The East
A man's got to play big.
An old villager says so.
It's just above this chapter.
2. life
■ The West
Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
■ The East
An old villager
Concentric Circles
Life seems like an endlessly stretching straight line,
But at the end, it curves—back to the beginning, a perfect circle.
It’s no hamster wheel stuck in place,
But a concentric circle, glowing at its center.
Even when struck by rocks or scratched by thorns,
Press on, and you'll see the end—
You’ve just drawn a circle of wandering.
Gather strength and move forward again,
A fragrant path will welcome you—
You’ve just drawn a circle of fulfillment.
Don’t be greedy.
Draw it too wide, and the journey is long and hard.
But drawing it too small won’t help either—
You’ll just have to start again soon.
So draw it gently, generously.
Don’t be impatient.
Rush it, and you'll veer off course.
But going too slow can grow tiresome.
So draw it steadily, consistently.
Don’t worry.
If your circle is dented or a tooth is missing, so what?
You can always fix it when you pass by again.
No need to cover it up—just keep drawing.
When young, love
Is two concentric circles suddenly overlapping in heat,
Burning as if to consume all—
Then scattering like ash in a passing wind.
Friendship
Is resonatihg with each other’s concentric circles,
Rooted in shared memories despite different lives,
Grown together through a lifetime.
Consideration
Is respecting the circle another is drawing,
And stepping aside with a generous heart.
Happiness
Isn’t something found only after finishing your circle,
But in knowing contentment within each moment of drawing.
If you keep drawing the years like that,
One day you’ll come to have
Your own unique concentric circle in this world.
If you keep drawing the years like that,
One day you’ll have it—
A one-of-a-kind concentric circle that is truly yours.
When you’ve drawn your whole life like that,
You’ll naturally realize—
It all begins and ends at the center point.
Epilogue
Who can know for sure?
When the final moment of life arrives,
The concentric circle vanishes—without a trace.
Only the center point remains.
And from that point, just a single step
Leads to bottomless cliffs cloaked in pitch-black night.
Standing there alone, won’t you tremble in fear?
But at that very last breath,
Won’t a radiant light greet you from above?
Might it not be—
Your young and beautiful mother from long ago?
3. death
■ The West
Heaven or hell after death.
■ The East
Life and death are one.
An old villager says so.
It follows at the end this book.
