Dearly Beloved...

Early this morning, using stream of consciousness, I jotted down my thoughts in the form of a letter. Amidst these odd and uncertain times, you never know.

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Dearly beloved…

Undoubtedly, there will come a day when no more updates will be posted, no more music will be written, recorded, and submitted to be shared, when no more thoughts and musings will be put forth. And though that notion brings you sadness, inevitably it is simply a part of life. Even though I will have physically stopped being on this earth, I will still be with you. Every day of my life has brought me closer to peace about leaving this place a better one than I came into. I have more recently desired to leave each person I have come across in a better place than I found them. I have evolved and grown to become more empathetic. This has only been made possible through suffering, pain, grief, and despair. These very seasons of darkness in our lives exist, but we can learn to live by them, rather than simply through or with them. It will require an intentional act of letting them be a part of "the works of sacred art that we in fact are." And in turn, our very weaknesses will be the very things that give us strength; that make us strong. Life has and will undoubtedly leave deep cuts in us, but through these canyons of grief, if we carefully tend to them and allow others around us to tend to them, love will assuredly enter us. Sometimes that love will come from those we have lost. And that, in its pure form of irony, will save us. It is my deepest hope that the greatest love that will enter, will be the everlasting love of God. Some of you will struggle, maybe even for the majority of your own life, to believe in God. And that is fine. I don't concern myself with the matter of a soul. Your soul is a beautiful thing to be cherished and what you call the deepest groaning of the place even beyond your heart is your own business. But, it is my hope that my life, and the peaces I leave behind through art and through my being and my own soul, will have helped you and healed you. I've often spoken of experiences. But it is quite enticing to make our own experiences more than they are. Our pain is not more exceptional than it is. One of my favorite poets once wrote: "In truth, experience means nothing if it does not mean beyond itself: we mean nothing unless and until our hard-won meanings are internalized and catalyzed within the lives of others." 

I love you. Thank you for being such an intricate and detailed part of my life. 

-Jae

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