3am musings

I like to think about things. And to think about the way I think about things.

[coruscatingdust]

bio

I’m a Korean-American student in her late 20s working on a PhD in Plato’s virtue epistemology at the University of Oxford.

Some of my favorite philosophers are:

Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, Martha Nussbaum, Gillian Rose and Hannah Arendt (yes, female philosophers are the best).

In general I’m interested in existentialism, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. I’m invested in asking the questions regarding selfhood and alterity, what it means to live a good life, and the truths we may discover at the ruins and ruptures of our existence (no wonder I love Greek tragedies).

I also love poetry.

Some of my favorite poets are:

Franz Wright, Anne Carson, Mahmoud Darwish, Louise Glück, David Whyte, and Rainer Maria Rilke.

My favorite artists I listen to on repeat:

novo amor, ben howard, harrison storm, old sea brigade, and phoebe bridgers.

if you’re into typology, my type is

INFJ 4w5 tritype 461 sp/so

If you would like to be friends on tumblr, feel free to send me a message. My asks are open as well.

my other blog is @agardenofdaydreams and if i follow you, it would show up through that blog. the theme for that blog is hope, beauty, and love (daytime, spring, and the light). the theme for this blog is suffering, haunting, duality, memories and loss (nighttime, winter, darkness and the void).

[coruscatingdust]

Nothing is real except for our attempts to make it real. When this attempt is gone, we see that nothing has been real all along.

[coruscatingdust]

Through my insatiable desire, i oscillate between heaven and hell. The pleasure that comes with longing for something so beautiful and the pain that comes with knowing that what you love is not what you thought it to be—this is the duality of the fire that both keeps you warm and burns you inside and out.

I want to turn off the fire before I turn into ashes. But what will become of this cold, damp house?

Shall I choose the madness of ecstasy or the loneliness of void?

[metamorphesque]

just something I'm currently working on for my substack

[metamorphesque]

the resounding silence that dwells in the void

An absence so absolute, so absent that it becomes a presence?

in case you're interested, here it is ...

[shampainsupernxva]

“Longing allows distance to recede, as if looking forward, although it may be called hope, were an adventure and a poetic notion.

Desire does not need the pretext of the rain, which drew you into the oak's bedchamber and departed. Longing is the fusion of fire and water. Longing is a frustrated poet rewriting the same poem hundreds of times.

Longing is born from every beautiful incident and not from a wound.

Longing is not a museum, but rather what is selected from memory's museum.”

Mahmoud Darwish, from In the Presence of Absence, originally published in 2006.

[coruscatingdust]

All my life has been an attempt to close gaps

Between what I see and what I believe

What I believe and what I feel

What I feel and who I am

Where I’m at and what I could be.

Trying to close these gaps, I’m either stretched across the horizon or falling into abyss.

[coruscatingdust]

Now it feels like I’m traversing a bridge.

[coruscatingdust]

All my life has been an attempt to close gaps

Between what I see and what I believe

What I believe and what I feel

What I feel and who I am

Where I’m at and what I could be.

Trying to close these gaps, I’m either stretched across the horizon or falling into abyss.

[mournfulroses]

María Casares, from a letter to Albert Camus, featured in Correspondance, 1944-1959

[coruscatingdust]

This intense desire for escape, where does it come from?

Perhaps it comes from a desire to find my soul a home.

[existential-celestial]

let’s bend light, love; not break. no. 101318 // 17:03

[existential-celestial]

what sleep do we open our eyes in

for every grief that wakes us?

what kind of gethsemane

pries open a heart of rock?

the ground receives every crawling,

every back bowed down witnessing

every possible firmament—

perhaps, we perceive

What perceives us.

perhaps, we are present

in the Presence

that precedes us.

no. 050923 | j. p. berame

[existential-celestial]

fragments | no. 080918

[existential-celestial]

i bid you permission

to enter these mirrors mirroring

every grief outside the garden

[existential-celestial]

on love (i) --- Christian Wiman, C. S. Lewis, Mahmoud Darwish, Thomas Merton, Frank Bidart, Pat Scheider, Julian K. Jaboe, Rainer Maria Rilke, Derek Walcott, j. p. berame (@existential-celestial)

[existential-celestial]

@existential-celestial, morning light // no. 103020 | Mary Szybist, “In the Beginning God Said Light”

[coruscatingdust]

my past writings are helping me get through my present sorrows

[benchpancake]