This is a Korean idiom meaning "if it becomes distant from your eyes, it becomes distant from your heart." It's often said about couples having difficulties in a long-distance relationship because one's presence is important to feeling a connection. MJ and I experienced this while I worked in a different city, but we used Google FaceTime to bridge the gap. Luckily, MJ is nice enough to remember me even when she doesn't see me every day or even for long periods of times, whereas I am a smooth enough talker to convince her I am thinking about her every moment every day even when she's not with me, but it certainly rings true that long-distance relationships don't work long term. It's the same with Zoom conversations: they're real enough in seeing people's voices and hearing them speak, but cannot replace real conversations, if only just from not seeing physical cues suggesting when someone is done talking to know when to cut in...a very delicate science that easily leads to two or three or more people talking at the same time (might be resolved by the "raising hand" button that Zoom provides but I haven't seen be used).
Also works when going on a diet- as long as greasy and fattening foods are not available on-hand, I can resist and make do with the bare necessity of foods, as I have during this pandemic. MJ and I currently live in an isolated area without many fast-food restaurants nearby for late-night snacks or fast-food dining (the closest location is a McDonald's a half-mile away, past a detention center, railroad, track, and numerous intersections that make it less than ideal), and we're not Uber Eats delivery people, so essentially it's like Survivor where we're on our own island only living off the resources available on that island: rice, veggies, vegan foods, a low amount of cereals (not much cholcolate). It really is just distancing ourselves from all temptations. If we do get something yummy once in a while, MJ will claim that the delicious food (insert cookie, dessert, tasty snack, etc. here) is "looking at her" and want to eat it, and like leaving a fox in a henhouse, all the food is gone the next time I check.
Different eras of my life (and living in different cities) seem so real and ever-present when I'm living through them and that it's always been like that, but once I move away into a new lifestyle I almost completely forget about the old lifestyle and feel the only way I ever live is the new way, and old memories are just a past life, almost like they never existed until I look back at some pictures and get reminded of certain events. So many new stimulus happened in New York City, for example, like running down the coast of the East River, eating at Chinatown in Queens, taking the subway with millions of others to work in the morning, going to a show on Broadway, and when I go back and hear the rumbling of the subways, the smell of the pollution and street vendor hot dogs, the view of the city from the Empire State building, the feeling of millions of people doing millions of activities all at the same time , I'll probably remember that lifestyle, but nowadays those things in my heart have been replaced by the sights of a lonely highway outside our window, the sound of our air purification system going off, the smell of body odor emanating from the laundry, and the feeling of being stuck inside during quarantine and nothing going on except my dull and simple life indoors. New York City and the life we used to know is out of sight, and out of mind.
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