Letters to Jeff

Hano Jeff,

It's been a year since your last letter. I know my words can’t help you move but this is the only way I can convince myself that I am still of some use. I don’t know why I keep imagining you alone, staring blankly outside the window for hours as you drink cups of coffee one after another. I have told you a thousand times to stop trying to save people at your expense. Stop interfering with their lives. But I know you well enough, you won’t listen.

People don’t need to be fixed. There is nothing to fix in this world but our thoughts. You’ll probably tell me that you are aware of what’s happening out there. How cruel the world is and how I can’t trust people.

Do you remember Luigi? Yes, that boy who punched you out of nowhere just because he didn’t like you. I remember how angry he made you that you managed to punch back. Hell, you did! I met him at the grocery store last month and he gave me two tickets for his game. “Take Jeff with you lad!” You should come, you owe him! He was the first one that gave you a moment to express anger, and it was the last time I saw you wearing that kind of face — happy fcking free.

I hope you can make yourself aware of the good things as much as you are of the bad ones.

You may be right, that we cannot win against something out there. We don’t have to. We can stand where we are and try to make best of what life gave us.

Be aware of the good things, mate.

And for fcking once, choose them.

“When we look at the outside world, we are looking at only a small part that interests us. The world we see is not the entire universe but a limited one that the mind cares about. However, to our minds, that small world is the entire universe. Our reality is not the infinitely stretching cosmos but the small part we choose to focus on. Reality exists because our minds exist. Without the mind, there would be no universe.”

— Haemin Sunim, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down