I Do Not Miss Childhood, But I Miss The Way I Took Pleasure In Small Things, Even As Greater Things Crumbled.

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.

Neil Gaiman (via quotemadness)

Couldn't agree more Hobi! ❤️

any words about our new album?

© SKY | Do not edit.

@stankris Thank you for another enlightening post ☺️

I felt my throat clench when I read the first part of Martha Graham's words you quoted. It rang so much across time, space and passion in any form as well. I'm sure many of us can relate and transpose it to many other fields, as long as they vibrate.

This is an incredible and inspiring lesson she gave, and that BTS have chosen to pay tribute too.

What I keep from this experience she went through and shared with the world, is that nothing has to end but everything can be transformed. It might demand struggle, personal hell even, scarring mourning. Yes, self-discovery is highly risky (Dante can relate).

I want to believe that everybody has their own purgatory waiting somewhere, like Martha Graham found her own. It might not be paradise indeed, but it's as close to heaven as it can get. I'm all for it, and I wish BTS, as individuals or as group, will find theirs.

Black Swan’s Epigraph

(Is it still called an epigraph if it’s at the beginning of a music video? I’m still calling it an epigraph.)

“a dancer dies twice – once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful.” -Martha Graham

This is a thought-provoking quote, and one that encapsulate’s the fear expressed in BTS’s Black Swan – the fear of growing numb to one’s art and losing one’s inspiration or passion, or being unable to continue it. 

But to understand why this epigraph was chosen, it’s just as important to look at the person behind these words.

Martha Graham is a legend who revolutionized the dance world, and essentially made modern dance what it is now. You can see why BTS, mold-breakers in their own respective field of art (kpop), might identify with her and her words.

She was also so passionate about her art, that when she retired from dance she sunk into a depression and turned to alcohol. Here is another quote from her:

It wasn’t until years after I had relinquished a ballet that I could bear to watch someone else dance it. I believe in never looking back, never indulging in nostalgia, or reminiscing. Yet how can you avoid it when you look on stage and see a dancer made up to look as you did thirty years ago, dancing a ballet you created with someone you were then deeply in love with, your husband? I think that is a circle of hell Dante omitted.

[When I stopped dancing] I had lost my will to live. I stayed home alone, ate very little, and drank too much and brooded. My face was ruined, and people say I looked odd, which I agreed with. Finally my system just gave in. I was in the hospital for a long time, much of it in a coma.

(Martha Graham, 1991 - Blood Memory)

When she spoke of a first death, she was scarcely being figurative – she loved dance so much that it almost killed her to give it up.

Luckily it didn’t and she went on to recover and continue choreographing dances, even if she would no longer perform them herself, until she passed away from pneumonia at the age of ninety-six.

I think the song Black Swan has a similarly consoling message. Even if they are afraid the end could be approaching in some form, there’s hope of a life after death.

Ego (wailing) : This was so beautiful! I can't! My heart is bursting with too many emotions!

Id (softly tapping the shoulder) : I know, I know. It's going to be alright...

Supergo: What's going on?

Id: Always that ongoing fic...

Superego: Oh, is it written now?