Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: Hope

  • All is Lost (2013) – Film essay

    Some movies should be noted, some memorized, but only a few should be applauded and taken by heart amid the luxurious streams of movies flowing from the screens. These movies chime the bell of your mind, enshrined in your dome of thought, and stay in your heart forever like beautiful memories that have become part of you, an inspirational lamp to give your life cheer and humor in times of need. In that light, All is Lost (2013), directed by J.C. Chandor, is such a movie that sheds light on your life when things are not going well for you, or you are lost in the middle of your voyage of life.

    The movie opens when a man (played by Robert Redford) wakes up, finding water in his quarter from a hall made by a collision with a stray container in the middle of the ocean. We don’t know the man’s name or where he comes from, except that he is somewhere in the Indian Ocean. We know that the man has the ambiance of a seasoned mariner whose demeanor is stoically calm and composed, rendering such an emergency look small and manageable. But it is the prelude to Nature’s test of Man’s Spirit, the beginning of his trial of hope when the damage to the yacht deteriorated due to storms to such a degree that he must abandon the yacht and sail on a lifeboat with a modicum of food and a navigational compass. But his will to survive and hope for rescue seems to be bludgeoned by the play of luck. He lights up rods to signal his location for rescue, but ships leave him alone on a vast ocean.

    Moreover, sharks steal his fish and cherish his flesh, swarming under his half-deflated lifeboat. These images immediately conjure up those of Santiago, a seasoned fisherman, and the formidable great shark from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Or the bright-eyed mariner from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Their silence speaks volumes of the voice of their strong spirits that can be destroyed but never conquered. Their aspirations, ambitions, and arduousness may be bent, but their souls are always ready to be rekindled by a passion for triumph over the darkness and fear, aided by a ray of hope.

    All is lost is an illustrious image of life in which we are alone in each yacht, sailing on the uncharted seas until the tailwinds carry us to the East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Illustrious it may sound, but the movie is never flamboyant, and Robert Redford plays the role of the mariner as if he were playing himself in dignified silence, wonderfully emoted by his face and action alone without overtly elaborating gestures or soliloquy. It is a realist’s story and as real as our daily sailing in life’s voyage. He has lost all his possessions but not himself or his life. And even if hope seems to dissipate into the fathomless abyss, there’s still a chance of hope, and we’ve got to give ourselves a chance to hope because while we breathe, we hope. Dum spiro, spera.

  • Sound of Wind – Vol 1

    Mountains landscape in Vorarlberg, Austria

    Monday, May 1st, 2023

    Today’s Article: Labyrinth

    Have you ever felt that no matter how hard you tried not to make the same mistakes, you would turn a full circle as if trapped in a labyrinth? If you have, then you are not alone, and you are not uniquely flawed. Put it bluntly, you are not a loser and will never be. 

    We live in a society – or in an era inclusively – where uniformed measurement of success in status represents who you are regardless of how long a way you have come despite everything, Unlike Ancient Greeks who valued what individuals had endured and achieved as much as they possibly could under the most depraved circumstances, we look at what our eyes see in the face of the mind because of the misguided belief that only the fittest will survive in the Darwinian theory of evolution. Here in the States, people believe those subsisting on welfare are lazy losers because they are uneducated or less educated. But that’s not the case. People with college degrees also find themselves mired in the rut of life, eager to get even a mime-waged job just to get by lest they should be thrown out to the streets. Sometimes educated people live in poverty, not because they are substance abusers or mentally deranged, but because they have different personal reasons that are not to be generalized under specific circumstances. We are all different, and different people have different needs. Didn’t Depeche Mode sing in “People are people?”

    Failure discriminates against none, embraces everyone, and we are one in it. The Beckettian philosophy of failure as a championing, not championed juggernaut of doom echoes the Nietzschean credo of what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Try again, fail again, succeed again. Or fail worse. Better worse. Fail worst. Till you get sick of it for good. Throw up for good, ad nauseam. If you are doing it, you are not alone; I am not alone. We are not alone. Don’t forget about it.

  • let it be

    When a high tide roars with thunder

    And my ship shakes with terror,

    Queen of Peace comes from heaven

    Telling me words of consolation:

    “Let nothing disturb you, just let it be

    Let nothing frighten you, it will pass away,

    Nothing is forever, fear gets you nowhere.

    The old has gone, the new has come;

    Declare Hope from Despair in Light from Dark, 

    Follow the North Star, even if you doubt it.”

    Then her words become music soft and sweet

    Crept on shining waters with the reflection of stars,

    Allaying the temptuous temper of the sea and mine.

  • Secret Garden

    Behind the doors 

    Of the labyrinth

    Is the secret garden

    Of iris and amaranth

    Minotaur tended alone

    With tears of sorrow

    For the love denied

    With the joy of beauty

    The flowers brought

    To the heart of gold

    Basked in the hope

    That one day love

    Would find him anon. 

  • Euphoria

    EeD0smwU4AE7XUt

    I ride on the wings of the wind

    Flying high o’er the mountains

    Across the deep, vast oceans

    Touching the lovely fluffy clouds

    Breasting the pure sea breeze

    In the soft sweet hues of sunset

    Lingering in the dazzling twilight

    And find my star shining bright.

  • Into a new beginning

    costa-rica-colorIt doesn’t mean anything,
    It doesn’t mean anything at all;

    For all left behind me is fleeting
    And it will not make me fall.

    It doesn’t mean much,
    It doesn’t mean much at all;

    For all left behind me is now out of touch
    And it will not catch me once for all.