I widen the self—
a river growing through silence,
even as the world tries to erase silence
with noise, machines,
endless invitations to become something else.

Still, I seek the quiet:
the breath before dawn,
the small interior room
where the soul remembers how to listen.

Rituals once shaped us—
a cup passed,
a gesture repeated,
a meal shared,
a song held for remembrance.
They taught us to pause,
to gather,
to bless,
to belong.

Now they fade.
Habit becomes optimization.
Identity becomes a project.
Relationship becomes an upgrade.
The heart becomes something to manage.

So I deepen the individual—
not as a fortress,
but as a field wide enough
for others to walk through.

I am memory and possibility,
silence and song,
faith and doubt—
a river carrying many waters.

We call productivity’s frantic rhythm, freedom..
We call exhaustion achievement.
We turn the self into a brand
and the heart into a task.

But I resist.
I want to breathe without producing,
sit without performing,
listen without calculating,
love without measuring.

My old creature still lives in me—
survival, pleasure, power, desire.
I teach desire toward compassion,
power toward responsibility,
survival toward care.
Even the animal of Imperial Christianity*in me
longs for a ritual
to bow,
to bless,
to belong.

I heard beyond Golgotha Hill,
“The good heart is deeper than religion.”
Kindness becomes ritual.
The human face becomes temple.
Shared breath becomes scripture.

I do not abandon faith.
I deepen it—
from possession to participation,
from certainty to wonder,
from doctrine to compassion,
from belonging to one group
toward belonging to humanity.

I am not a single note,
but a chord—
animal and spirit,
solitary and communal,
wounded and hopeful,
remembering and becoming.

And you—
walking this trembling earth—
you contain multitudes.
You are a river.
You carry forgotten songs beneath the noise.

Perhaps your silence is waiting to become prayer.
Perhaps your kindness is waiting to become ritual.
Perhaps your wound is waiting to become a doorway.

O world, rest.
O capitalism, yield.
O rituals, return as living gestures.
O heart, refuse to become a machine.

Let us remember how to gather,
how to listen,
how to bless,
how to belong.

I deepen.
I widen.
I become.

And in becoming myself,
I discover—
I am never only myself.

* Imperial Christianity (How Constantine Created the Christian Right) by Wayne Lavender, Market Square Books

– TaeHun Yoon, 8/20/2026

I took this picture on my iPhone
on August 20, 2026, at 9:47 p.m.