my thoughts on BE: a thread about concept. (this is so long, if you read it all, i love you.)

the first time i heard the title, “BE”, i immediately connected with it. i think most people can connect with it, because i think the human condition is a constant struggle against external influences, to look for a way just to be.

sartre talks about the different kinds of being (“being-for-others”, “being-for-the-self” etc) and one of his central theses is that people are social beings who live, in some way, for others.

the pandemic threatened this part of our identity, and we had to begin to divorce ourselves from the idea of seeing our being through other people’s eyes. (we were suddenly very distant from our “being-for-others”.) we had to find a way to be, when we only had ourselves.

every song on the album deals with that struggle. who are we when we are alone in our rooms? when a tree falls in a forest, and no one hears it, does it still make a sound? humans are social animals, so what does it mean to be, when we are not subject to the gaze of others?

“life goes on” seems to say that our lives continue, even if they are bleak when we are alone: “like an echo in the forest, life goes on.” blue & grey” reminds me of the sadness that we have to confront when we look into ourselves.

“fly to my room” is a cry of the helplessness and frustration of a life lived alone. can a bedroom, a safe space, still be safe when it is the only space one has? when i am confined to my room, with only myself, who am i and how do i start to be?

then we have the skit, and the tone of the album shifts. the skit is bts realizing 2 things. they can achieve their dreams and the world continues to march on. this can be heartbreaking, but it can also be hopeful. good things can happen and bad things can end when life goes on.

then we get “telepathy”, probably my second favourite song on BE. it’s about another kind of happiness, the joy derived from other people, especially loved ones. those who always have our back, no matter what. it’s a song of hope, that distance and time apart doesn’t destroy love

in fact, it can make love stronger. “even though we’re far away now, our hearts are the same.” the world might have divided us, but it doesn’t have the power to take us away from one another’s hearts.

then we’ve got “dis-ease”, another absolutely banger of a track. it’s one of those uniquely bts that hides a heavy message behind a sick beat, and it fucking slaps. i talked about this a little before, but the title means both illness and discomfort, and the song discusses that.

there are different things that can be seen as illnesses or addictions: anxiety, working too hard, heartbreak. there is a mental health pandemic that’s been going on, even as we fight against corona. these kinds of illnesses also seem to be the human condition, though.

maybe it’s an affliction of the modern world, or maybe people are just fucked up, but life always goes on. we fight through our own demons, our own diseases, everyday. without even realizing it, we confront our own diseases, and make ourselves better: “i will never fade away”

“stay” seems to tie together the first and second half of the album. it has this clear sense of loneliness, of being in an empty room, and all the messages that were in “blue & grey” and “fly to my room”, but it doesn’t seem hopeless.

just like we learn in “telepathy”, that our hearts continue to love even when the world tears us apart, we learn in “stay”, that the people we love will always be waiting for us. wherever the people we love are, that’s where they will stay.

in the end, we’re left with a question: what does it mean for us to be? albums like this can answer that question, in a way. when we listen to music we love, dance around our rooms and feel pure unadulterated joy, isn’t that the best part of being? “to be” can mean exactly that.

to be happy, to feel peace, to have a beating heart. it can also mean to be ill, to be miserable, to be lonely, to be loved, to be safe. maybe we’ll never know what the point of being is, but i love this album because it’s like a safe room.

listening to this album is a reassurance that no matter what you are, you can simply be.

(i’m sorry this thread got so long and so pensive, i just have a lot of feelings. these songs all talk about such universal feelings, and it feels like they’ve already worked their way into my heart. if you read this far, i love u)