Just before you read, I would like to give a T/W for Harmful Thoughts.
If you are feeling a certain way please seek the necessary help, at the end hotlines will be linked. Thank you.
In this current year, we’ve been thrown around by countless emotions. It has been tough on the soul and being of everyone, with being trapped in your room, apartment or house. We begin to lose our sense of place, the future has become murkier, dusty and confusing. The news barrels off countless numbers that strike fear into everyone. Losing physical contact for long periods is not good for anyone, constantly we longed for contact, to see each other again. Every campaign which gave the message of ‘we will meet again’ just felt like it was prolonging our months inside. As the sun began to rise on the horizon we began to see each other again, but something was different. The world around us was different, it was forcefully being changed for better or for worse. Yet in that period of us being alone, being the only one in the room we were trapped with our thoughts. Mono, one, only, single. The single thought that kept us going was to a brighter tomorrow. We weren’t the only one with that thought but we felt alone in it.
RM woke up in Tokyo, feeling like a torso. Feeling detached from the world around him, from himself, just a torso away from the arms, legs and head. Like a tourist in this foreign city, he was not going to be there permanently but his detachment was profound. Speaking these thoughts on the track ‘tokyo’ from his playlist Mono, Kim Namjoon of BTS spoke one of the most brooding pieces. Tokyo’s spelling in Hangul (동경*) shares the same meaning as longing. In essence, he awoke longing for feeling but in the end, he still felt detached from the world he opened his eyes to. Much like most of us awakening in this world, seeing each other again we were longing for it, waiting for it, wanting it so bad. For some, the time away just tormented our minds and began a tyranny of dark thoughts. Observing from a glass window. How do I know this? I was one and still am one of those souls who became filled with themselves before it became too much.
Being in that room of my childhood for too long caused the dreams that were forged inside to become convoluted and stained. Losing the soul of those childish dreams as we moved towards adulthood. Seoul, the capital of Korea was the next stop in RM’s mind, finding how the city had lost its soul to him. How the duality of Seoul & Soul became a duality of Love & Hate. A city of dreams, an escape to a promise of a good life quickly became a dream of sadness and sorrow which began to build in the city and comes to a crashing end in one of the saddest lyrics of the track.
“너무 많은 한을 품는 한강들과”- And the Han River that bears too much han.
Han meaning resentment. Speaking of the lives lost in the river, where sadly people go to escape the pains of their reality. His own soul now feeling like Hangang, being resentful of the world around. With the constant theme of turning to ash, the raw battle of thoughts that fill his mind shows us a different side. Beginning to question those who try to help on ‘everythingoes’, ‘It all passes, someday, for sure, certainly.’ Telling ourselves this, almost fooling ourselves to believe it, but it is never certain, who knows what tomorrow will bring. Followed up later on the track with;
“Since both people and pain will all die one day,
If you want to become dull, you need to go out into the wind.”
Kim begins battling with the thoughts, the darkest of thoughts that can almost plague all of us. What’s the point? If I am just in pain all the time maybe there’s only one solution. To go into the wind as ash, once we become ash we lose everything that made us, us. Embracing the pain seems to be his only way of living, using it as a mechanism to see if he’s still dreaming. If he feels pain he might awake from this hollow nightmare.
Knowing that forever isn’t real, he attempts to live for now. Using the pain he feels to live on for those around him, even if its hollow with a chance to heal.
“We have learned to love ourselves, so now I urge you to ‘speak yourself.’” — RM in 2018, speaking to the UN general assembly.
This raw, weary ep from 2018 stands as a moment to stop and think about oneself. Ask yourself now, if you’re ok. Listen to the rain on the window, feel the wind in the air as it pushes the hairs on your body and looks around. Life might be tough in these current times, but its the pain that comes to define you as a person. Even if going out into the wind feels like the only way just tries to understand it all around you. Love yourself. Speak to yourself.
also to add 동경(donggyong) means Tokyo as well as 도쿄(dokyo)
Thank you for reading, as I stated in my preface if you are feeling lost, feeling uneasy and just want to talk please call any of these hotlines below. You are not alone, these times are dark and uncertain.
Australia : 13 11 14
Canada : 1 833 456 4566
France : 01 45 39 40 00
Germany : 0800 111 0 111 / 0800 111 0 222 / 0800 111 0 333
UK : 116 123
USA : 1–800–273–8255
https://twitter.com/RuffsPuding/status/1316627224573992961?s=20 (this tweet as almost all of them, it is not my own twitter.)
