Presently at café gyü: MOTM (music of the moment)
The legend is back like they never even left. Super Junior celebrates their 15th anniversary with a 10th album, The Renaissance, with this funky title track that anyone living in these times should listen to. Yes, this is a campaign (and also yes, full disclosure that this is a 10+ year ELF [EverLasting Friend, that’s the SJ fan for y’all] writing).
I’d quote the whole song because honestly the lyrics! Unexpected. But also not really, because it’s SUPER JUNIOR what would anyone expect?
But basically: Let’s put aside our feelings / Of wanting to be together for a while
You heard ’em. 다시 듣기!
And as usual, the whole album is top-notch. Here’s the whole list on Youtube, Apple Music, Spotify.
(Also AAHHH that album title. Goes straight to my heart.)
Of course, there’s also the much-awaited solo of the times: -R-
Thank goodness for music.
I remember almost a decade ago when everything’s just starting out: Internet was slow, Youtube had little-to-no HD content, and Super Junior was just a little more than ‘Sorry Sorry’. If I had no school, I’d be up until 6 AM (because that was the only time when the Internet would work well enough for videos) and sleep until late afternoon, both my mother and I. Besides the Internet connectivity aspect, it was just too hot during summer in Metro Manila to be awake so if we’d ever leave the house, it would be for dinner when the sun had finally gone down.
Some years between those times and this, I left my hermit corner, went out during daytime where people are also awake, and stopped listening to music I like (or more of, I stopped telling people the music I liked until I actually stopped listening). Recently, I realised that it might be because of that, as in my own timidity, that most people, even those who I’m supposedly closed with, don’t know much about me and my preferences except for my “liking everything”. That’s true, still very true that I like “everything”—almost everything especially when it comes to art and music at least—but I’ve just been reminded that there are things I like more than some others, and also things that I truly, deeply resonate with. I think that can be called love or something.
My listening to SUPER JUNIOR has been closely connected to positive progress in my self-realisation. I wouldn’t say cause-and-effect; just that those two things come at around the same time. I started listening again when I shifted my major to Philosophy and finally accepted the kind of work that suits me best and makes me happy. And every time I go deep into that ELF whole, I am reminded that I started seriously writing when I became a fan and it was with fan-fiction drove both my writing and my visual art. More than anything, it was while I was in the fan-fiction community that I realised I can make a living out of whatever stuff I can do on Photoshop and with stories of my wildest dreams. Not too far off are we now, eh?
I still feel sad when I remember the times that I stopped listening. There were many things I missed out on and those were also times that I felt so lost on my own, times when I had honestly lost myself. It started with hiding this one aspect that didn’t seem acceptable and spiralled into too much adaptation to the environment. Too much because if I were to be honest, I wasn’t as confident as my arrogance may make it seem to be. Wasn’t really happy either being the person people recommend music to with but not having the ones I like appreciated.
But boo-hoo, those aren’t really regrets, just sad stuff, I guess. It was during those times that I formed a bond with poetry and I probably would never have if I stayed in the comforts of my reclusion. And sometimes, you just have to try something to know for sure that you wouldn’t like that certain thing.
And when I think about it, I used to just try so hard to appreciate what others share with me as a way of being-with but no one owes anyone anything. That goes for ‘trying hard’ and ‘appreciation’. People share things because either the act of sharing or the things they share make them feel good about themselves. People appreciate the things shared with them because, again, something about that makes them feel good about themselves. ‘Feel good about themselves’ may also mean ‘fulfilling the expected social act’. Rare is it when the intention is purely of the wholeness of the act.
All of which are now in the pile of things I don’t want to bother with.
(Also honestly how can anyone not like SUPER JUNIOR music they have so far 750+++ songs there’s one for every kind and genre??? My only 2021 resolution is to never again bother with anyone who wouldn’t even try SJ. That’s a half-joke wholly meant.)
Right now I think the phase of selection-experimentation is over for me. Not completely, I hope, because I’m hoping for a good long life too. But right now, I know the what’s and how’s of the things the resonate with me, from music to food to the dailies. A lot of it are things that I’ve always had and always have been. I’ve gone back home and it’s a full circle.
(And that totally means a House Party hahaha)