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Searching for Creative Utopia During the Pandemic
Artist and musician Jihae meditates on her journey with racism and sexism in the entertainment industry
Spring came late this year, tiptoeing between cold showers and premature summer heat. Feeling the warm sun on my skin and mRNA running through my blood, I dream of brighter days ahead. Living in purgatory for over a year, we’ve had a lot of time to reflect and question everything including our changing climate, our police force and even our identities. Now that summer is around the corner and the lockdown a near forlorn memory, I wonder where we’ll go from here.
Do we really want to go back to the “normal” that came crashing down on us? Or will we find our way to shift the imbalances in our socioeconomic structures and ecosystem towards a more harmonious norm for every living being?
The best thing that came out of the lockdown for me was my consistent yoga and meditation practice which helped me realize the need to understand myself better and have more clarity in my purpose. I began Carl Jung’s prescribed inner journey to gain deep insight into myself.
Reckoning with your inner self is not quite like doing selfies; it’s a strangely unpleasant and resistant form of introspective surrender. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s much easier to binge-watch the latest TV series. It doesn’t take long until you realize that you’re only passively consuming the violence and conflict that you’re trying to escape in reality. As I put in the time to excavate myself, I thought of how much distraction overtook my daily life and how essential it is to take the time to breathe deeply — in silence.
Staring into my own void of darkness, I found residues of anger, grief, and pain from childhood.
A car accident at age seven broke my femur twice; the first break fused the bone like a second knee, which had to be re-broken under anesthesia, keeping me bedridden for half a year and on crutches for another six months. My family left South Korea for Nigeria soon after I began walking again.
A bittersweet adventure unfolded as my little self navigated through nine schools across five continents by the time I became a teenager, moving as often…
