The speech is like a warm hug on a
winter morning, enveloping you in
like a blanket, giving you warmth and
support, telling you that it is fine to be
vulnerable and to trust others. I think
that, at the end of th e day, the person
who has experienced heartbreaks and
betrayals is still you. You can’t change
the past, but you can grow and be
stronger. And one day, you’ll be clean.
Namjoon’s UN speech; 2018
“I would like to begin by talking about
myself. I was born in Ilsan, a city near
Seoul, South Korea. It’s a beautiful
place, with a lake, hills, and even an
annual flower festival. I spent a happy
childhood there, and I was just an
ordinary boy.
“I would look up at the night sky in
wonder and dream the dreams of a
boy. I used to imagine that I was a
superhero, saving the world. In an intro
to one of our early albums, there is a
line that says, ‘My heart stopped...I
was maybe nine or ten.’
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“Looking back, that’s when I began to
worry about what other people thought
of me and started seeing myself
through their eyes. I stopped looking
up at the stars at night. I stopped
daydreaming. I tried to jam myself into
the moulds that others have made.
Soon, I began to shut out my own
voice and started to listen to the voices
of others. No one called out my name,
and neither did I. My heart stopped and
my eyes closed shut. So, like this, I,
we, all lost our names. We became like
ghosts.
“Maybe I made a mistake yesterday,
but yesterday’s me is still me. I am
who I am today, with all of my faults.
Tomorrow I might be a tiny bit wiser,
and that’s me, too. These faults and
mistakes are what I am, making up the
brightest stars in the constellation of
my life. I have come to love myself for
who I was, who I am, and who I hope
to become.