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

Tag: journals

  • On Watching “Adolescence” (2025) – Netflix Season 1

    This Netflix drama series does not focus on an activist narrative that many might passionately debate from various political or social perspectives. Instead, it explores how something unimaginably tragic can affect anyone or any family, regardless of their socioeconomic status, race, or cultural background. Committing a crime is not solely the domain of a degenerate or disturbed mind; rather, it can be seen as a sickness influenced by a combination of social factors and the inherent predispositions of individuals. And yes, this reality includes all of us.

    Here is an adolescent boy from a hardworking family whose father may have a temper but is kind and understanding and has a strong responsibility for his family. Hardly a likely candidate for the head of the dysfunctional family contributed to producing a psychopathic killer. Having a temper doesn’t mean you are automatically attuned to criminal minds. To that effect, the father of the boy is neither a saint nor a sinner, and his son’s problem is not of family but of peers; it’s from peer pressure under heavy intoxication with social media where your worth is valued by lookism and agism vying for popularity as key to success. A loser is an Incel whose insecurity is forced by the number of likes destined for a public whipping boy or walking sandbag. Yeah, it’s easy to label anyone who is not within a safe zone of being accepted, and you become a new outcast. If you are a woman outcast, then you are a new witch to be persecuted. 

    The problem with the boy here is his consequence and punishment, but that should not be relegated to the family. To ostracize the family of the sinner is a time-honored practice that never changes, just as there’s no new thing under the sun. While the drama shows the brutally realistic portrayal of the crime, the doer, and the family without overt display of emotions or elaborated scripts, it does not give the boy light of redemption in the person of the psychologist interviewing the boy. I cannot help but think that she’s there to get what she wants, which is to extort confession that he did kill the girl, and that is why he did it, not trying to help him cure the mind disease. She does not seem to be happy with herself either. 

    It was mind-disturbing and painful to see how the police handled the boy and the preponderance of shock that his family encountered on what might have been one of those ordinary mornings. Seeing his father criticizing himself for not being perfect broke my heart. Yet, no one is perfect; he is a good father with a strong sense of responsibility for his family and a good heart. That’s good enough. You see, bad things can happen to good people. Dad, please don’t blame yourself. You are a good father: good night and sweet dreams. 

  • prompt 207 on what to change

    What would you change about modern society?

    I believe a family is the nursery of a society, a nation, and the world. Whether it is headed by a parent or parents or a de facto breadwinner in the form of a non-disabled child, one thing is certain that good parenting is absolutely required for nesting humanity. That said, I will propose a law enacted for a qualified parent or parents who are mentally and physically able to nurture and nourish their children regardless of class and ethnicity.

    I believe there are no evil children, contrary to the popularity of demon children from Damien in Omen to Rosemary’s baby. Still, only bad parenting can produce the so-called demon children hell-bent on destroying humanity. For instance, so many convicted killers had disastrous childhoods destroyed by parental violence, from beating, swearing, and molestation to humiliation and degradation. How can you beat such a little child just because they are troublesome or bothersome? And it doesn’t matter the level of education or social status of a parent for the crime of child abuse. Not all of us are made for parents with maternal or paternal instincts, not because we are inherently evil, but simply because we are not for the roles.

    Therefore, I believe there should be a legal touchstone for being a good parent before having a child. If a mother or father is not ready to bring a child into this world and show him or her the beauty of life through thunder and lightning, then don’t be. Not everyone should be a parent.

  • Prompt 206 on mind boggling

    What bothers you and why?

    I am bothered by people and their hypocrisy. Injustice, Avarice, Cruelty, and Ignorance. A lack of charity and understanding. Weakness to all that glitters, power to all that pleads. Aristoteles said we can’t live alone unless we are beasts or gods. But I tell you, humans are angels and demons, the children of Janus with two faces of light and darkness.

    People can move heaven and earth, making a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven, so much so that we can make a criminal of an innocent man like a human sacrifice to idols or false deities. For example, I watched a Netflix documentary about Henry Lee Lucas on Friday. He was known as a “Confession Killer,” who claimed to have murdered 600 victims all over the U.S. But did he kill them all? He killed his mother for sure because she was atrociously violent toward her son, beating his head so severely that the portion of his frontal lobe was permanently damaged, let alone his right eyeball that burst out, which was later replaced by a false prosthetic eye. Lucas was said to have an IQ of 87, but he could read, write, speak clearly, and draw quite beautifully. It was his social IQ that put him on a pedestal of the mentally inept.

    While watching the documentary, I could not help but think that Lucas was a victim of circumstances and prejudices. He was coerced into confessing falsely to the killings that he had not committed because the sheriff under whose custody Lucas was fatherly to him with warmth and kindness that he had seldom received. It was painful to see Lucas pleading not guilty to the falsely confessed murders through the cell in front of the hordes of reporters and camerapersons as if he were a freak in the circus. He was crying, and even if he might have lied, you could not/should not bear false witness.

    Nevertheless, those who chanted vehement epithets with no mercy but spite for the murders that he had not committed did not apologize to him as if doing it would be an immoral thing to do. And people continue to be merciless to those lowly in social status or need care out of collective neglect. We champion human rights, equality, and justice while doing the opposite things to those who need the championed values. It’s sickening, and that is what bothers me.

  • prompt 109 from my autobiography

    You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

    It could have been better. They should have known better. God should have been kinder. All this could have happened if I knew how to stop the wheel of fortune played blindfolded by the Sisters of the Fates, cheered and hooted by the spirits wandering between the worlds, not knowing they are long dead. So, how can it be solely my fault for the life I have lived without knowing about my life? How can you be so quick to label me as a negative loser harping on the unseen that no one wants to hear? My name is written on the water, and my spirit is flitting on the clouds in the azure sky, still longing for life because living is far better than dying. It could have been a beautiful life.

  • Prompt 108 on Job

    Do you enjoy your job?

    I am grateful for my job which provides me with a steady income and decent benefits. Moreover, I am proficient at my work. Similar to Earl of Kent in Shakespeare’s King Lear, I am qualified in what an ordinary person is capable of. And the best quality in me is diligence.

    The only thing I am not content with within my current job is the company culture dominated by the employees, my so-called colleagues who like to form cliques, their clubs of buddies and gals sharing the same linguistic background, which I call cultural and ethnic affinities. Never have I experienced such a shocking sense of isolation. It never occurred to me in New York City or even New Jersey, where I spent 30 years of my younger self. This clique mentality is a thing of the West, especially in Los Angeles, CA. It’s like being surrounded by high school or teenage students whose mental ages stopped growing. Maybe I am getting old, but as a person of keen observation, it is a new type of discrimination. You are unwelcome in their circle if you are quiet and look very different. They will not even bother saying hello or hi and not even include you as an existing human being.

    When I was on the East Coast, where the history of cities is longer and the culture more civilized and cosmopolitan, such estrangement was hardly felt. But then, I can’t complain about my current job as long as it provides me with a livelihood to support my elderly mother, two cats, and my aging self. If the people at my work were kind, friendly, and mature, my current job would be the kind of business I love. I would rise and go to it with delight. But beggars can be choosers.

  • prompt 107 on word

    If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

    It’s Passive or Aggressive.

    Passive-aggressive. There is no such thing as being passive-aggressive. One can be one or another, but not both. It’s a fad psychoanalytical term that profilers, shrinks, and mobs like to call neurodivergent persons for convenience as a thoughtless, careless invective.

    The term passive-aggressive refers to a timidly introverted or neurodivergent person who is prone to a frenzy of ire or anxiousness. But who isn’t? One cannot be always happy, pleasant, and smiling in public, which I find creepy, reminding me of the clown from the movie “IT.” Introverts and Neurodivergent people are not accustomed to voicing out their feelings and emotions, such as disappointment, frustration, grief, or angst, in the way neurotypical persons do, so they tend to suppress them while also needing to make their voices heard in a way that is communicated less diplomatically or effectively than their counterparts.

    Mob psychology corrupts words because it is not the words that are harmful but the user of the words who breathes the evil spirit into them. People also like to label those different or distanced from them with malicious epithets. Also, the words like positive and negative are overtly used, and the meanings are bastardized. There are no negative people but disappointed, ignored, and misunderstood people. Do not use it for people just because you don’t bother to know or are not interested in learning. Therefore, Passive-aggressive is a gaslighting word, and it must be banned. If not, then separate them.