Incredibly interesting that the first interaction with someone who has blatantly hurt him ...

Incredibly interesting that the first interaction with someone who has blatantly hurt him and kinda unintentionally spurred him towards Heejae in the first place is the first one to explicitly apologize to Garam, and without prompting too.

Also curious that this is coming from someone who has let go of music. Especially when music to Youngjo was what caused him immense pain, and trauma, and turned him warped and conniving, using others and their feeling for his own means. (And what does this mean about Yosep, who is the only one who still plays, and hasn’t reconciled with either of his friends?)

I’m not too clear yet with what I’m trying to say…but I’m just thinking…the connection that the author is (maybe?) trying to very slowly establish and hint at; how music is pain. Or rather, music is so vivid, so all-encompassing that it causes pain, like when you’re over-sensitized and pleasure turns to pain…? To leave it behind makes you more human? Or rather simply more regulated, more stable, less attuned to magnifying things to the heights of glory and the pits of despair? Because when you think about it objectively, truly none of them, be it Heejae’s students or Garam’s group while in school, we’re normal well-adjusted people. I can’t speak to how Younjo and Naeun are now, and so will be fascinating to see how they turned out with the new dynamic of being possible former musicians, but none of Heejae’s students are normal still. Even after they have actively unlearned and let go of Heejae’s teachings. And basing off when we last heard of them, obviously 4 years ago, they were all active high profile artists. And yes, this is an indictment on Heejae the monster maestro, but Younjo was also terrible and that was via his own independent trauma stemming from music.

Is it a curse to want to reach the heights of musical enlightenment? What is shunned and what is devoured in an attempt to find your singular sound? I know it is a never ending journey. Garam has shown us this and Heejae most of all has demonstrated it.

Again, this is kind of like me talking out loud lol just trying to work through my thoughts but yeah. Curious what this abandonment of music and being around others who have also let it go signals to Garam. And also at what point does he hit the wall of his acceptance of this new reality. In my opinion, he’s in the midst of grief right now. For himself and for love, because I think that love to Garam is music, and as of right now, music is also Heejae. When he comes out of grief, and if he does it on his own, what does it look like to see others who were also able to throw it away. What does music look like on its own? Is that even possible? Can one strive for that brilliance without the agony? Will he be able to once again look at and acknowledge beauty and have it be divorced from the sound that he carries?

I think a lot of the imagery of Garam as a lotus, able to stretch out wide and cover the surface of maybe not a beautiful place, maybe not beautiful water, but able to expand in freedom and thus bring beauty. And now this area has been excavated? Crushed? Dried up? Or rather maybe harvested. Maybe all his blooms have been harvested and now they’re sitting in a beautiful bouquet on someone’s shelf at home. And maybe he finds happiness in this new comfy life. He no longer has to put in the work to cover new ground, to turn something empty, beautiful. But cut flowers have an end. Cut flowers die.

At what point, if ever, will he think, maybe I want to go back to my pond and spread again, start again, differently?