[TS] Formula One Streamer - Chapter 205

“Anyone can do this up to here if they are an F1 driver. The next part is the problem.”

“What’s next?”

“Gyeongji (境地). From now on, I’ll refer to everything I’m going to explain as gyeongji.”

It seemed like it would be a long conversation, so I took a sip of champagne before continuing.

“First of all… I would like you to know that I am not perfect yet and that I have only just entered the beginning of this.”

“Not completed yet? Huh…”

Hearing that I, too, stood at an incomplete stage, at the beginning of gyeongji, even Ricciardo and Perez, and even Leclerc, sighed.

In their eyes, I seemed to be at a perfect or at least near-perfect gyeongji. I calmly continued my speech amid the lively party atmosphere.

“The moment you truly know yourself, that’s when you need to forget yourself. It might be more appropriate to say forgetting. Forgetting myself, conforming to nature, and following providence.”

Gyeongji was difficult to explain in words. It was merely the body’s sensations accepting nature and adapting to the race car. And the situations change moment by moment, and the driver must always fluidly follow them.

Flow. One must not miss the flow. To be in gyeongji is akin to being swept into a rushing stream. Once you’re swept away, there’s no escaping until you reach the sea. If you lose the flow in that current, there’s no choice but to be destroyed or perish. While it may not mean d*ath on the circuit, at the very least you must be prepared for problems with the race car’s functionality or damage.

You have to go through the process of distancing yourself from consciousness and even pushing away the unconscious to transcend the given reality.

Reaching gyeongji, transcending it, is such a thing. It allows you to break through the limits of limits, but if you fail, it can take away something massive.

I made my best effort to explain this concretely so that they could understand. However, because it was all abstract concepts, it was not easy to visualize.

Ricciardo, Perez, and Leclerc mostly tilted their heads in confusion during most of my talk, but occasionally they nodded, seeming to empathize and feel my words.

‘They must have often thought this way in their usual lives.’

The fact that they understood even fragments of what I said meant they carried such worries in their hearts. They must have contemplated how to become faster and how to move more efficiently, and thus they were seriously pondering my rather complex words.

‘If that weren’t the case, they would have looked at me as if to say “What nonsense is this?” a long time ago.’

If they had settled into their current state, they might not have remained in F1 nor understood the context of my story. Even I was carefully choosing my words, worried that my explanation might sound like nonsense, so how would the listeners feel?

As a result, it was unavoidable that my tone sounded more like seeking agreement than explanation.

Later, I judged that further explanations would be meaningless and simply spoke my mind. I wanted them to understand what they could from the seeds I had sown.

In the end, I seemed to be reciting strange doctrines like a cult leader to the three drivers alone.

This isn’t a place of Daoism speaking of nature, providence, gyeongji, or conformity…

This is F1, the most mathematical and scientific arena in the world, dealing with the extremes of technology and engineering.

Yet all that came out was a jumble of nonsensical words, evoking a quasi-spiritual vibe without even trying to.

Even so, Ricciardo and Perez focused on my story with serious expressions until the end. There might be some respect for me, but they didn’t think my words were completely unfounded. They must believe there’s some value in what I said, hence their serious expressions.

Ricciardo, who had been summarizing my words in between, organized it once more.

“Anyway, you forget yourself and completely merge with nature while forgetting the very situation itself. That’s what you mean, right?”

“Exactly. You understood it precisely.”

“All I got from that is just this…”

Ricciardo smiled bitterly.

I didn’t think my words would be immediately helpful. Simply planting doubt in their hearts was enough for me to have done my job. Humans are curious creatures that open Pandora’s box even knowing the predetermined doom, and they began to harbor doubts in their minds more than anyone else.

‘The day they understand my words with their bodies will bring significant changes to Red Bull. I don’t know when that will be.’

I brought up the final and most important point about reaching gyeongji.

“I don’t know how to attain gyeongji. It’s just about accepting the moment when it arrives…”

The logic of what gyeongji consists of, and how amazing it is, can come later; what matters most is the method of entry! I couldn’t describe the series of processes to enter gyeongji myself. That moment simply comes.

“Right. Both consciousness and unconsciousness can’t be involved or should not be.”

“Hmm…”

The three drivers, experiencing the difficulty from the complex explanation, were left unmoving despite listening. They seemed to have expected this outcome already.

At that moment, Leclerc, who had been silent for a while, spoke heavily.

“I don’t know the step-by-step process to fully enter gyeongji, but… perhaps the first step to enter gyeongji is a state of no self?”

“No self?”

“Yes, no self.”

Nodding, Leclerc cautiously continued.

“I thought about what you said, Lee Hyun, and I feel like I may have briefly dipped my toes into that gyeongji during this race. Even if it’s just holding onto the very edge of it.”

Leclerc glanced at me, clearly feeling a bit embarrassed. It’s undoubtedly an awkward situation. However, I didn’t deny it.

‘It must have been so. The last moment when I overtook Ricciardo, I was in a situation where I could never overtake unless I entered gyeongji.’

I recalled Leclerc’s final overtaking scene I saw in the car moving to the hotel. It was a movement that seemed heavy yet light, slow yet fast, artificial yet natural—truly like flowing water. I instinctively knew that it was movement only visible to someone who had reached gyeongji.

Nodding to support his conjecture, Leclerc confidently continued.

“We don’t know the conditions to enter gyeongji, so it’s impossible to fill that in. Instead, let’s try erasing one by one from what we do know. First, we’ve all likely reached a state of no self at some point. No, it’s something possible anytime if we set our minds to it.”

“Hmm…!”

Those who had tilted their heads in confusion until now nodded this time. Everyone had the experience of forgetting themselves and immersing entirely in one point in the race car. If even that were impossible, they wouldn’t have the right to be sitting here. F1 selects only those who possess such talents.

“Under the assumption that understanding oneself and the race car mostly precedes. Lee Hyun, the conditions you mentioned are already all met. The next step is to conform to nature’s providence, which cannot be invaded by either consciousness or unconsciousness.”

“Right.”

“Then, we fell into a state of no self while discarding consciousness, right?”

“Right.”

With Ricciardo’s affirmation, Leclerc scanned the group, sharply asking everyone.

“So, what’s left?”

The conditions are met. Consciousness is also erased. Then…

“Unconsciousness…”

The word “unconsciousness” dripped from Perez’s mouth low and hazy like fog.

“Yes, only unconsciousness remains.”

Even if one forgets oneself and escapes from consciousness, since immersion and concentration include a goal as a direction point, unconsciousness inevitably comes into play.

It means that the unconscious, which I am not even aware of, participates in that state of no self.

Having given enough time to think, Leclerc continued.

“If we can discard even that, we can reach gyeongji. Of course, I don’t know how to do that, and I can’t guarantee that discarding unconsciousness will definitely lead to gyeongji… but two things are becoming clear.”

I summarized his words.

“A state of no self is a preparatory process to enter gyeongji. Within that, we need to find a way to discard unconsciousness.”

“Hmmm…!”

Everyone murmured.

How vague and abstract are these concepts and methods?

It’s a harsh environment where one can only rely on their own sensory experience.

You know the goal, but you don’t know the direction. Not knowing the direction means you can’t walk. Not being able to walk means you can only forget how to walk.

‘I can’t even say I know the goal like this.’

The night, which I thought would be refreshing for Ferrari and Red Bull, continued to sink into silence.