Mental Health – The Things We Love

Monday Morning in Suburbia (new year edition)

January 8, 2024July 1, 2024Mental Health, WritingLeave a Comment

I have tasted defeat. I am tasting it right now.

It tastes like cold wax from burnt candles, hardened, sharp bits on your lips.

I tried for four years. I tried to be more than I could dream of. I tried to have a single-line epitaph (“She wrote.”). But I failed. And the fire is all but extinguished. This is no way to start a year. But I am defeated. And I am tired. I am so tired.

Please, do not bring God, or love, or children to this discussion. Do not bring any of that. Don’t tell me I’m ungrateful. Defeat is a solitary, wrenching conversation between abstract desires that only live in ephemeral form and have now disappeared. It has nothing to do with God, or love or children.

To lose faith, to lose god, is one thing. To lose the fragile flame that flickers inside, to have it finally extinguished, is akin to a death. And there is no epitaph.

On D-Day, Agust D walks a path toward growth, healing, and peace

August 3, 2023August 24, 2024Album Review, Mental Health, MusicLeave a Comment

This article was written as a contribution to Bangtan Library.

Released on April 23, 2023, Agust D’s D-Day represents the end of a trilogy that started in 2016 with the release of Agust D, Min Yoongi’s first mixtape under his alternate artistic persona Agust D. The two mixtapes offered a window into Agust D’s most personal thoughts and experiences, expanding on the themes and lyrics he had contributed to BTS’s discography under his main moniker, SUGA of BTS.

Continue reading ➞ On D-Day, Agust D walks a path toward growth, healing, and peace

Tuesday Morning in Suburbia

April 11, 2023December 22, 2024Art, Life, Mental Health, UncategorizedLeave a Comment

I want to say outrageous things. Like: “I wish I was only consciousness for a little while. No body, no brain, no mind. Only to observe and perceive the universe, from afar, unfeeling.” No mother should say such a thing. The selfishness.

I fantasize about becoming only consciousness for a little while. Also, to leave my bed unmade for a whole day.

I want to descend into the carnivalesque, Rabelais style. Let the excess take over. Like when I was a student and hid in my house for days with dozens of movies, watching one after the other without acknowledging the outside world or its wants from me. Let the body disappear behind the decadence. Leave only the eyes and the ears.

I want to cut my head and body off so I may feel better for a little while. Bottle the consciousness in a clear jar in the meantime. Put it on top of a shelf for when I’m ready to come back. No suburban mom should say such a thing. The madness.

I want to say outrageous things.

Image: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “The Fight Between Carnival and Lent,” 1559 (Wikiart Public Domain)