august

Cara making past his 924th day may have been his most remarkable achievement, but no one is ready for what is to come.

It all started just moments after his 924-day mark and my two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, when we got the memo for another ONF comeback. That, of course, called for another BE:tact phase! But it was the last.

Prior to this, I already have a plan for a final BE:tact phase after Summer Live, even if there was no promotion from any of the headliners - intended to accumulate remaining promotions from this cycle for me to finally be given a chance to rest. I have worked on events for 7 months straight. I have been at it since February.. it's like almost the entire Year 3 has been spent on events. The time spent from working on the first BE:tact phase, through My Turn, until the final one this month - I now call it the event chain. And January was like the only month when I experienced a fresh, new and clean slate. I wanted to go back to that time.

In all honesty I won't mind doing events nonstop. But.. life happened. I don't think it is the right time to do events and even smaller activities.

Sometimes I was even thinking if my decision to do BE:tact 1 in February was a mistake. I thought of this already. It went on very well as the first event of the year, without anything getting in the way. I had no regrets running that event. But things went problematic during the events that followed, despite my efforts to to prevent them. We are literally going back to zero. My life was getting more complicated. I did not have any direction and I did not know what to do.

They say the grass is greener on the other side, but I feel like no grass is greener everywhere. It's been four years since graduating and to this day I still haven't found my north star. My purpose, my calling, my destiny.

I did these events and activities with the intention to find them. But it seemed that none of them worked in my favor. Sometimes, doing these activities may not really be the best way to find yourself. It's better to know your limitations and assess your circumstances before making a decision. This means we may have to do completely different things or fully step out from our comfort zone.

That's what I am doing now. After BE:tact 4, I choose to go on an absolute hiatus from any form of internal activity until we go back on track and be fully ready, with Cara Week becoming the next activity to implement - but that I'm not even sure if I will continue. One thing's for sure is that nothing will be slated for this fall. For once I will finally be able to experience being in January again. Year 3 so far became the complete opposite of my true intention for the year.

And it's an irony to even be thinking of this.. when we are actually about to enter Year 4 already! Unlike in previous years, Year 4 may now even be subject to nonexistence. At this time in leadership, we're living life now as Gen 4 instead of Caratime. Right now, due to recent circumstances, Cara lost his spark again as a leader.

It's either:

• Cara's end may be near

• Cara is actually Year 4-bound with some glitch or anomaly happening at some point in his run

I don't understand what is going on with him. He always shifts between the two. But I'm tired conceding. Instead I choose to be grateful for this present moment. There have been so many great things happening in my life right now, from meeting new people who can relate to me to starting mindfully making some life changes to at least accommodate activities that I have never done in a very long time. I also had some encounter of my past, from nearly 15 years back, which made everything else - including the entire leadership concept - seem so new.

As much as I want to save Cara, if this means I would have to sacrifice a bit of his performance as a leader in exchange for improving my life and well being and saving my family, I would cheerfully take the challenge like what I do now, with hopes that one day he will get back his marbles again. After all, BTS is currently inactive, nearly two months after the release of their most recent comeback.

And I know Cara. I trust him.

I believe in Cara entering Year 4.

In light of my personal experiences that happened in Year 3, I want to ask you all if humility is the only way to get through them all. If magnanimity is the only way to go.

A possible reason why I'm still having some difficulty choosing my path is.. maybe I'm not humble enough to accept myself? All of me? I'm not trying to be better than everyone; I just want to feel accepted like everyone else. I just wanted to fit in. So how can I be humble when I am already literally down to earth myself?

It's hard to be humble when you are on the spectrum, because every day you feel like you do not belong. Every day you always feel inferior even to your average but neurotypical peers (example: me and Chanlie. I call her unnie and sunbaenim despite her being 3 years younger). It's like.. why be down to earth when you are already down on earth? But then, when you have already attained some level of success, it now becomes easier. Why? Because you did not expect it.

Speaking of humility, I admire that one huge side of the K-pop community - specifically ARMY (and silently Fuses, despite not being as vocal about this topic as armies do) - for being realistic with their idols' personal lives and humble with who they really are. Their realism can be a sign of their altruism, but altruism is only easier said than done. We all want to be kind to our groups, but it's really difficult to achieve absolute kindness to your biases if you have that inner insecurity which you need to overcome first.. and that takes a lot of humility and self-acceptance. I commend them for being empathetic to their idols' well being despite having some insecurities about themselves which we may have not known, if any.

Sometimes I wonder if they even went through the same exact experiences as mine.

I want to leave a very important note to the community.

I'm not expecting it to reach a side of it, but I have hopes for the entire community to realize this.

I'm not sure if they do.. but I wish for all fandoms to see the bigger picture.

As much as you give recognition to how they feel, I wish for you to also give recognition to how you feel.. and to how your peers feel. I'm not defending all the delulus here, nor am I even one myself; I just want to acknowledge that not everyone have the same experiences or personalities. If some of us went through something, this does not mean that we are being unkind to everyone. We only have our own feelings which we need to process first.

Everyone else must be really humble about themselves.

But humility becomes a challenge for people like me.

At the end of the day I decided to only live as me. When I do, the right people will come to me to accept who I really am. I will also be able to easily accept the situation as it is, and I will also be able to make the right decisions because I know who I am.