BTS: the road less traveled but worth taking
June 14, 2022 — BTS broke the news that they are temporarily taking a break from their group activities to focus on their individual music during their Festa dinner.
While writing this blog, I’m still trying to figure out what to say but I still hope to put my feelings out there to release them and comfort those who might feel the same.
The pain is valid
This world may tell us otherwise, but they don’t have to understand. We knew in the deepest corners of our hearts why it matters and that’s what is important.
BTS might still be pursuing individual music and this isn’t the end of their career but this is a different chapter of their own lives which doesn’t include their music as a group.
Your pain is valid if you feel like this break hurts you. Because their music as seven was the reason we’re all here. That same music was the one that ignited their dream. Also, that same music led us to them and them to us. This might be a temporary pause to do more things individually but temporarily doesn’t mean we can’t get lost. We can get lost especially when that same music was the one that guides us home. Sometimes, their music as seven is all we have.
It’s okay for BTS to feel the pain to set it aside because this was their common ground. This music is one of the biggest factors they held on to for so long. It’s okay to feel wrong to say you want to choose yourself today because you’re still not used to new things.
Their pain is valid and so are ours. This world will not understand and we don’t have to explain why. This world wouldn’t understand how collectively, BTS as a group changed you, inspired you, motivated you, and loved you. This world wouldn’t understand the different reality we have created through their music as a whole.
I remember crying along with them as they want to dive into this journey. And then I realize, why does our vision blurs when we cry? Maybe it's for us to focus on our emotions, and what we truly feel. The vividness of our surroundings blurs out when our hearts tell us to focus on it. I guess, for once, let’s not shrug those tears.
Our pains are valid no matter how deep or shallow they are and all the emotions in between them.
Different boat, different direction, one dock
“It’s like the seven of us are on the same boat, just looking in different directions, but going the same way. That’s how I describe BTS.” — RM of BTS. This was true until they finally decided to brave the sea, separately.
During that time, RM said they were “looking” in different directions, however this time, they mustered the courage to finally paddle there and I guess figuratively, that’s why they decided to go back to the beginning to board their separate boats. They decided to not limit theirselves to one boat anymore but they agreed that after exploring the sea, they’d go back to that one dock where their boats first sailed.
It’s kind of scary to not know what’s out there, to brave the waves by yourself as we’re used to hearing “thank god we’re seven”. This might sound like a break-up but it’s not, it’s a comma and not a period. We’re still going to be here for all of them — we’d paddle oceans.
But we have to understand how much courage one has to build even with the right people to take that risk. How long does someone have to bottle those emotions until they finally broke out. How scary it is for someone to make a decision that changes your life even with familiarity. Cause even taking a break is a risk in this fast-paced world where nothing is guaranteed even with a promise. I hope they’ll brave the sea together with our love and support and eventually, find that seven intersections again or make their way back into that one dock where we all are. And probably when that time comes, they’ll still be on their own boats but will sail together, side by side — to continue to grow individually but together, just like family.
It’s time
BTS is the world we created to take a break from ours together with this fandom. A lot has described it as an escape or a safe place that has provided us with the utmost comfort. Now it's time for us to be the first ones to understand how it felt like — to need that break and to choose it.
We took a break from our own reality and found BTS because we didn’t want to give up on ours, on ourselves. At the most exhausting moment of our lives where we felt the breaking point, we found them and they found us. We decided to open the door and bring ourselves in. This world has become our pause when we couldn’t keep up.
Now that the instrument [BTS] of our rest and little pauses needs to take a break too because they didn’t want to give up on us like how we didn’t want to give up on ours when we found them.
It’s time for us to keep running on our own and enjoy the waves with them. It’s time for us to give back what we have borrowed. Eventually, when we all found what we were looking for, BTS wasn’t just the one that saves us anymore. They’re going to be an extension of ourselves in that vast sea because we have grown together. And their music can be both an escape and a reminder of how we have lived our lives, and how we can keep going living it.
Some breaks are needed, some breaks are chosen and I guess, it's both.
The road less traveled
At the beginning of their career, BTS took the road less traveled — unpaved and troubled. Many found it funny and unsettling, but a few found it courageous and real.
They start to own this road less traveled and paved a path not just for them, but for their fans as well. People took this road not with the fear of the unknown but with a heart that wants to find where it beats. With the word of mouth, it spread until more people found out about them.
This road less traveled consists of language barriers, critical songs, struggle, maintaining equilibrium, social movement, etc. which all of them surpassed and done.
But importantly, this road less traveled consists of us. People who want to find themselves, people who want to feel loved, people who are lost, in pain, in great confusion, and on the verge of giving up. But there’s also these people that knew themselves, and know what they wanted, but are exhausted, afraid, and looking for courage. And I realized that most of us are already on this road as if we were shouting in silence in the bareness of the cold road which no one dared to take until BTS came and some of us arrived with them, for them, and because of them.
How can you love someone you haven’t met and don't know your existence? This is probably one of the most magical questions we have. And I realized after being on this road that, yes we do love them. But probably we’re also in love by the fact that this world has so much love to offer. We love the feeling of being involved, understood, seen, and loved all at the same because of them. And I think that’s why we love people we haven’t met not because of one’s physical existence but how they make you feel. And all of that happened with BTS and on this road, we traveled so far.
There’s a lot of confusion and daggers in between — but with every step, this road is worth taking. The grass may be greener on the other side, but I don’t mind the dirt if that dirt consists of me. There might be more doors on other roads but I can make one here. The storms might be fewer there, but I’d sing along with my thunders here. As cliché as its sounds — because there, there’s no me, there’s no ARMYs, there’s no YNWA, and my favorite song. There, there is no BTS.
Our uncertain is also our definite
Not just with BTS but with everyone who’s taking the unknown or who’s doing it again for the first time. Our fear of what can probably happen in between is not as big as who we are ought to be. The end may not be the one we envisioned it to be, but the end is the reflection of the things we’ve decided to become in between. Uncertainty is scary, but regretting not doing it is as scary as not doing it at all. One day, our uncertainties will become clearer as they turn into our definites.
What comes next may change in the middle of our journey that’s why choosing ourselves will never be wrong because who we are, who we used to be, and who we will become will always take us back home.
I hope BTS find their own colors as they get through all the paints of the world. And I hope one day when the time is right when they have fulfilled the things they ought to, they’ll make music together again to show the world’s colorful palette and hues. They won’t have to worry about us going because life may get in the way but we’ll always find a way too. The real ones, stay, always in heart.
