Today marks exactly one year since I started making changes to the map of Korea using openstreetmap.

my projects: 제주시 원도심 * 영흥면 * 거북섬 * 제부도 * 대부동 * 영종도 and 자운대

During this time, I’ve met many talented people, participated in many projects that will benefit people for decades to come, and of course (how could I not?), I’ve also satisfied my ego with athletic achievements. Mapping is a great hobby for people like me who can never get enough of new data. Every day of mapping brings new knowledge, and with it, new emotions.

I’ve heard a lot of opinions this year. That mapping is about freedom. That mapping is about community. That mapping is about the environment in which a person lives. Perhaps all of this, and more, is completely true. But for me personally, mapping is about knowledge, data, and education. It’s like having a sweet tooth and finding a bottomless sea of ​​sugar. It’s like finding a beach where diamonds are scattered right under your feet.

We live in an age of endless wealth. Internet, AI, cartography, food, water, access to politics, access to education, access to entertainment… Without leaving our homes, we can do in a day what took scientists centuries to achieve in the past. More than anything, I can’t understand how, in this abundance, people find time to fight and kill each other. Because I personally am incapable of satiating myself with the wealth that was given to me solely by the era in which I was born.

Fate has given me almost nothing in this life. But even deprived of what little I have, I never cease to feel capable of the impossible. Only because this bottomless sea of ​​possibilities never ends.