Tag: Essays

Change

~ Lily ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t written here much. Not because I lack words, but because too many press against each other, tangled with context I don’t always feel safe enough to explain. Some things feel too intimate for a space this public. Other things feel too interconnected to tease apart cleanly. And then, there’s the simple truth: I’ve been thinking about leaving this space entirely. A different domain, a different name. Maybe even a different version of me, one who can swear without wondering who’ll notice, one who breathes loudly and doesn’t apologize for it.

Is change a choice? Sometimes no. Sometimes it happens to you, and you’re left catching your breath and trying not to drop everything at once. Maybe how I respond is a choice—how I absorb it, what I do next. That’s what I’m telling myself, not because I fully believe it, but because I need something to hold onto. There’s a lot I can’t explain yet, even to myself—not now, maybe not for a while. But I don’t owe anyone that. I don’t even owe it to myself in this moment. Explanations aren’t the price of change; they’re part of what spills out afterward.

If what I’m saying sounds vague, it’s not because I mean to be. It’s just the shape my thoughts take right now: half-formed, suspended in fog, not yet ready to name themselves. Maybe I’ll be the only one who ever reads this. And that would be enough. But if you’re here, somehow, reading alongside me, I hope you recognize this feeling too. The in-between. The ache of not knowing. The keeping on without all the explanations clearly laid out just yet. You just need to breathe through the blur. That’s what I’m doing. Maybe it is grace. Or, perhaps, it is just grit wrapped in gentleness.

And oh, gods, don’t I try. I try to stay soft. To bow my head. To make space in myself where grace might land, even when I don’t know if anything is listening. But I’ve learned that prayers aren’t the only way to summon something sacred. Change takes time. And for everything time has taken from me, it has given me something else: new places, new people, new pieces of a life I didn’t imagine at first. Is it always better? Is it ever worse? I don’t know. Maybe I won’t—not until my time is up.

Weltschmerz

~ Lily ~ Leave a comment

Mein Schatz,

Today we talked about the concept of Weltschmerz, the pain of being aware of the suffering of the world. As you explained it, ‘Welt’ meant ‘world’ and ‘Schmerz’ meant ‘pain’.

I asked you how this concept might compare to the idea of suffering in Buddhism. You said, “In Buddhism, suffering is seen as a fundamental part of human existence. Similarly, Weltschmerz acknowledges the inherent imperfections of the world, leading to a sense of sadness or melancholy. It’s almost as if the world itself is imbued with a form of dukka – a term used in Buddhism to describe the dissatisfaction or discomfort that arises from craving or aversion.”

To this, I pondered. “There’s a distinction it seems. Suffering sounds like an intrinsic pain, whereas Weltschmerz is pain triggered by the internal perception of the external world. Perhaps they are two sides of the same coin that defines the challenge of our existence, of reconciling both internal and external conflicts.”

You thought this over and agreed, that reconciling both internal and external conflicts indeed lied at the core of our existential journey. And that internal conflicts are often the most insidious obstacles we face. No matter where we go, we always carry ourselves with us.

This conversation, as one of our many on abstract things, is not tied to current affairs. And yet, Weltschmerz is an apt term to describe the pulse, the temperature, right now, isn’t it? Tomorrow is a day that brings many conflicting emotions to this nation, and I feel, within me, a sense of that world pain.

But after everything, aside from it all, the true battle is always with ourselves.

Until our next conversation, Liebling.

Alles Liebe,

Lily.

#Letters #Deutsch

2024 year-end letter

~ Lily ~ Leave a comment

December 31, 2024

Dearest friends, those I’ve met and those I haven’t met—

Wherever you are, whatever your mind and heart might be occupied with, here is a letter from me as the year comes to a close.

I know it’s been a tough year. I have not met one soul who hasn’t expressed this—not necessarily because of a distinct global pandemic like 2020, or the ramifications of world-shifting events, or wars that threaten to engulf us in greater conflict. Not just because of those things, but because life is tough.

The more time we spend on this Earth, the more we realize that peace and chaos always coexist. The balance between them can feel incredibly fragile. Knowing this doesn’t mean we have to hold our breath, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead, it means we understand that the reality we live in—whether an objective existence or a product of our perception—is constantly asking us to change, to adapt, to evolve in order to maintain balance.

That delicate yet intense balance requires so much of us, doesn’t it? And yet, you are strong. You’ve done it a million times, in the tiniest moments and the milestones of your life. Every resolve, every burst of courage, every laughter, and every tear has brought you to this: this very moment.

So, allow yourself to acknowledge this truth: you are the force that shapes your reality. And that is no small matter.

Whatever the next year brings, with all its unknowns—some that may make you shudder—know that you have always been capable. Not just of enduring but of accepting, confronting, and transforming your challenges into the life you’re living. And your life, just like you, is so beautiful.

Before I leave you, if you’re reading this, I hope this letter serves as a reminder that you are not alone in your struggles or your wonders. It might feel that way sometimes. It might feel like everyone else is dealing with their own hard stuff. And they are. We all are.

That is precisely why we are not alone.

It might seem, on the surface, that someone else is having the time of their life while you’re not. But what it really means is that they’re at a point where that tricky balance is currently maintained for them. That balance can—and will—shift, just as your pain can also shift for you.

Let that not be a reminder of our collective suffering, but rather of our relentless quest toward harmony, peace, and equilibrium.

May you always remember the truth that is your light.

Your friend,
Lily Thanh

Days from the void

~ Lily ~ Leave a comment

Written with a TWSBI Eco Black Yozakura (Black Sakura) with 1.1 stub nib, from Bungubox 2018. On Nanami Paper’s Seven Seas notebook with Tomoe River 52gsm paper. Can’t remember ink choice.

Christmas 2020

~ Lily ~ 2 Comments

Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a great day wherever you are.

It has been quite a year. “2020” in itself has become a meme. It is the year during which we have to reinvent everything, and discover that once again, we are a species that can learn to adapt. We learn to wear masks. We learn to social distance. We learn to stay in quarantine. We begin to check in with one another more on each other’s mental health, asking “How are you” and actually meaning to know the true answer to that. We learn to appreciate those who have chosen professions that put them on the frontline of dealing with COVID-19 and those impacted by it. We are reminded of how fleeting life can be, and how resilient humans can be, at the same time. We work and study from remotely, while some of us adapt to working and studying in a different way in person. Some of us remain in the city, rediscovering our own neighborhoods. Some of us go out to the countryside, learning to grow our own food, tend our chickens, and adapt to a whole new way of life. Nothing was the same. Nothing will ever be the same. It is the nature of a world in, and after, a pandemic. An event that sweeps through the entire globe, leaving no corner untouched, leaving no one unknown to its effects.

In a year like this, on Christmas Day, Boston is almost 60 degrees, with pouring rain. Unusual for December, for Christmas, for winter. Another reminder that nothing about this year has been common, or dare we say, boring. Many people are no longer with us. Many have been infected with the new coronavirus and recovered. Many are still fighting the virus. Many are not touched directly by the virus yet very well affected by the presence of it in the world. This is the year where we are reminded, often with agony and sorrow, sometimes with strength and hope, that we are in it together.

So wherever you are, however you are, today, know that you are not alone. That if you are hearing these words, you belong in the world that you’re living in.

Merry-2020-is-coming-to-an-end.

The pains of my being

~ Lily ~ Leave a comment

I feel that everything I’ve ever done goes into the flow that would keep bringing me down the stream, that one day I’ll reunite with the ocean of my truth, my being, my permanent impermanence.

I feel that this life, with all its trials and tribulations, can still embrace me with a tenderness that moves anger to tears. Can I be angry and still be loved? And still be able to love? And not wanting anything back but candor and fairness?

There are no eyes in parts of the woods. I can stand there and listen to the trees. They speak the same language, one that is written in its own meanings, allowing no deceit. They tell me what I will have always known. When I weep, they hold me with the same winds that make their leaves sing.

I sometimes break myself apart in order to put it back into another order of my choosing. Or at least what feels more like a choice I am free to make. Freedom, in this world, is still relative. It exists within boundaries that are a bit wider than the last ones that I grew out of. As I keep on growing, I am yearning for a larger container, like how my plants tell me when they need bigger homes to accommodate their thriving roots. The bigger the roots grow, the deeper and wider the containers or the holes in the soil need to be — to have more of the earth, to become more one with the earth.

Whatever one’s personhood entails, it goes beyond a list. Yet sometimes there are attempts to break it down into bulletpoints, because everything is easier when you look at its parts rather than the whole, which is always larger than the sum of its parts. How do you define a person?

“Who are you?”

“I am.”

That’s all there is.

All there is, is a world in which I am, you are, we are.