In Regard to Pressure, Time, and BTS: A Road Story (Contest Finalist)
Nowadays we spend a great amount of time thinking about the future. It’s the reason why we motivate ourselves to study things we don’t like, why we put up with harsh situations, and why sometimes we read horoscopes, even if it’s just for curiosity. At 7 a.m., I have to be in front of my monitor for Statistics classes, to learn how to predict future events, how to look at the past and some pieces of the present to suggest what would happen over time. I have also predicted things in Physics, to calculate how much time is needed to go from one place to another. It’s funny, I guess, to look at some numbers and predict. Sometimes it’s so easy, it becomes some kind of game. However, numbers are too abstract to describe the harshness of the journey. There are moments when the numbers say you will be at a certain place in five hours, and there is urgency to be at that exact point, but things happen. An unexpected fog in the middle of the road, damaged roadways, or a car that breaks down can transform those five hours into 10 or 12. There’s no time to look at the windows and observe what surrounds you: the only objective is to do what you are supposed to do. My life feels, more often than not, like that.
Sometimes the expectations are too overwhelming. I am such a good student; I have already done more than many people thought I would be capable of. The belief of being able to become an impressive adult has been haunting me since I was a kid, and as I grew up, so did the notion of eventually taking care of my family and giving a future to the ones who are younger, just like my elders did with me. I can’t avoid worrying not only about my family’s future, but also my own destiny. For the sake of safety and stability, I have given up many things I wanted to do and be. I don’t know what would happen if I fail; it would mean that all my relatives’ effort — and all the things I have already sacrificed — were in vain. And more often than not I have this sensation of being engulfed by time, a time that goes at full speed and forces you to make impactful decisions as quickly as you can. One day you start school at six, and the next thing you know is that you are competing with thousands of students for a few slots at a university. There is no time for even wondering what on Earth happiness means for me.
That’s when I met BTS on the route. My younger sister was an ARMY before me, so I guess learning from her rather than the other way around was an interesting experience. Until then, I just knew a few popular songs and the fact that they talked about social issues, so I had no bad opinion about them. However, seeing her so interested in them made me start looking for their discography and lyrics. “Let’s take some minutes for research, they must deserve the chance,” I thought. I liked everything: their songs, interviews, speeches (oh, and also they’re pretty funny!). It’s impossible to learn their story and how they started and not admire or respect them. They are strong and hardworking people. I guess that’s why they felt quite relatable to me and now, they’re included on my role models list, right next to Santiago Ramon y Cajal or Marie Curie. And as time went by, listening to their albums over and over again started changing little pieces of my chaotic mind.
Of course, it’s not a cure. The way I manage my worries is up to me. The way I decide to walk my path — or change it — is up to me. I think BTS give those types of answers in interviews or songs, but those are their own answers, which can be translated as questions when you look at yourself. I remember one of the verses that felt like a raw enquiry was from “Path” (2013): Doolset (2020) translates it as “Would I have been different / if I had chosen a different path / if I had paused and looked back.” It made me question — not for the first time, but it was questioning anyway — how I was doing stuff and why.
Probably “Paradise” (2018) or “N.O.” (2013) were among the songs that hit the closest to home. They gave me reassurance from the unconformity I felt about my upbringing, an itch that I couldn’t think about without feeling guilty at the same time. My favorite one about the topic, though, is “Intro: The Most Beautiful Moment in Life” (2015). Maybe, even though constant evaluations and facing yourself periodically are almost necessary, there are moments where the most helpful thing you can find is someone who basically screams and cries and roars the words that for ages have been drowning in your throat. When SUGA said “I ask myself once again, ‘are you happy now?’/ The answer is already set, ‘I’m happy’” (Doolset, 2020) a realization hit me right on the face: even if a million worries come after you every day, you can still tell yourself “I’m happy,” maybe actually believing it. You can still make the most out of life, the most out of an ephemeral present that will never come back.
BTS’s music also helps me see the past in a more positive light. I can place some songs as soundtracks for certain episodes, even if I didn’t listen them back then. For example, “Whalien 52” (2015) are the lonely hallways from my old school, when it was difficult to interact with people of my age, while “Young Forever” (2016) is my senior year and graduation. “A Brand New Day” (2019) is the story of how I became the closest version of what I used to be after a low point. “A Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone” (2017) feels like my friends wishing me a happy birthday and bringing gifts. “First Love” (2016) is my old calling begging me to try again, even after nothing turned out as I originally planned. They turn a past into something similar to a Samoyed dog. I’m afraid of dogs, but this one is so gentle I would be okay with getting to know them properly, maybe even sitting next to one for a while, aware that it won’t hurt me. I don’t have to hate it or fear or scold it for behaving in a certain way, just understand and learn from it.
BTS’s interviews also had a great impact on me, especially the interviews for the BE comeback in Weverse Magazine. At the end, I gathered up all types of advice, from SUGA’s acceptance of change to Jung Kook’s focus on “figure things out one at a time through experience.” It was interesting to read not only about RM’s sense of responsibility over his job and how he wants stop overwhelming himself with challenges, but also how even after many conflicts, he recognizes that at the end of the day it was his choice, he learned from his past experiences and decided to be happy while doing all the things he has to do. Probably, the member with a philosophy I just loved was Jin (is this because we’re both INTPs, maybe?). He explained out loud how I wanted to improve after discovering BTS’s work: “My goal is to live without overthinking anything”, “… we all have to wait and stay put until everything gets better.” Recently, I’ve started to return to my old hobbies just because doing those activities make me happy here and now, instead of turning them into something so big I start dreading them. Now things like buying an online course to draw or write gives me a sensation of triumph I cannot describe. Stop worrying about what I will do in three years and just living is winning a Nobel.
In my country, if you want to go to the countryside, you usually have to cross the mountains. A whole chain of mountains , it’s so high you may get sick. However, we don’t just cross snowy summits, or take steep roads all the way up. We go on thin highways built at the slopes and drive our cars or trucks slowly and carefully, so carefully you can fall asleep. Meanwhile, we enjoy the route: we look down at the valleys, the rivers, the sunrays between the hills, and the crops that look like a patchwork quilt. We count cows or horses, tell stories, and listen to music [*]. I don’t know for sure where I want to be, or if my future is a valley or a tundra or the most impressive summit someone can ever see. That’s between my own greed and me. However, I think I would be happy if the journey to go there is like one of those happy, peaceful trips. When I know where I’m meant to be, I’ll pack my bags, get on the best vehicle I can find, make a good BTS playlist for the ride… and just go.
This essay was chosen as one of the finalists of the first BTS Essay contest hosted by The BTS Effect. Find out more here.
AUTHOR NOTES AND REFERENCES
Doolset. “A Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone”. 1 June 2018. https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/a-supplementary-story-you-never-walk-alone/
Doolset. “Epilogue: Young Forever”. 1 June 2018. https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/epilogue-young-forever/
Doolset. “Intro: 화양연화 (Intro: The Most Beautiful Moment in Life)”. 17 July 2018. https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/intro-the-most-beautiful-moment-in-life/
Doolset. “First Love”. 1 June 2018. https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/first-love/
Doolset. “N.O.”. 15 November 2018. https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/n-o/
Doolset. “낙원 (Paradise)”. 1 June 2018. https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/paradise/
Doolset “길 (Road/Path)”. 30 January 2020. https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2020/01/30/path/
Doolset. “Whalien 52”. 1 June 2018. https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/whalien-52/
Genius. “BTS & Zara Larsson — A Brand New Day (English Translation)”. 14 June 2019. https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-bts-and-zara-larsson-a-brand-new-day-english-translation-lyrics
Jin. (26 November 2020). Jin “It feels like my memories of ARMY were all a dream”/ Interviewed by Myungseok Kang. Weverse Magazine. https://magazine.weverse.io/article/view?lang=en&num=60
Jung Kook. (11 November 2020). Jung Kook “I hope this feeling never fades”/ Interviewed by Myungseok Kang. Weverse Magazine. https://magazine.weverse.io/article/view?lang=en&num=61
SUGA. (4 January 2021). SUGA “I’m grateful that there are still unvisited areas in the world of music” / Interviewed by Myungseok Kang. Weverse Magazine. https://magazine.weverse.io/article/view?lang=en&colca=1&num=96
RM. (28 November 2020). RM “I spend a lot of time thinking about where I am now”/ Interviewed by Myungseok Kang. Weverse Magazine. https://magazine.weverse.io/article/view?lang=en&num=62
[*] There’s many videos made by people — truck drivers, cyclists, tourists — who record the route as they go, and you can see some of the roadways, or how the geography changes as the height increases or decreases. These videos and my own childhood memories were one of the beginning points of this essay.
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