Hi, Theo. How have you been? This past week was a truly dreadful time, but for some reason, I found myself missing you deeply. So I got through the week with the thought, 'I’ll write to him first when the weekend comes.' It’s not that I have anything specific to say or any particular reason for writing, and in fact, I don’t even know which address I should send this letter to for you to receive it.
Why was I lost in thoughts of you from time to time? What on earth was the message those stray thoughts were trying to pass on to me? Like a blind man groping an elephant’s leg, I’m simply trying to trace the context of all this myself through this short letter. After all, when it comes to our hearts and our unconscious, we must, by nature, be blind people. But I hope you can just take all these clumsy, awkward attempts as a simple greeting from the years gone by, just to ask how you’ve been. You know, too, that for a certain kind of longing, simply knowing the other person is doing okay is more than enough. You were probably the one who taught me about that, at least to some extent.
By the way, Theo, where on earth are you these days, what are you doing, and how have you been? The last post you uploaded to social media was just a single photo taken in Varanasi, India, and that was already three years ago. When I saw that photo, I thought to myself, 'He actually went there after all,' but what is it? Did you really shave your head and become a monk, like the jokes we used to toss around without much thought? Or did you meet someone who shook your firm soul and settled down?
Or perhaps you opened a small, shabby bar in the corner of an alley bustling with foreign tourists and became a bartender, or became a delivery rider blending in among the locals, waiting for a green light under a traffic signal. Whatever form your life takes, I don’t think I would be all that surprised. Rather, as if I had expected it all along, I would have just burst out laughing at how unpredictable you are.
Whatever you do, wherever you live, and however you live, it's all fine, but you must stay healthy, and you shouldn't be lazy about taking good care of yourself, Theo. Taking on the responsibility and trouble of caring for someone else, navigating and nurturing relationships, might not be bad either, but since that would be entirely optional, I won't add words like “must” or “please.” Ultimately, no matter what shape your life takes, as long as you haven't let go of your own hands, of the strength in the grip holding your own heart, you're probably doing quite well. I believe so. I suppose all I can wish for is that you aren’t too exhausted, that things aren’t too harsh or dangerous, and that you aren’t too lonely.
Theo, I’m thinking back to the day we first met. Counting it up, it’s been well over ten years, along with all the days that have passed from then until now. Back then, I was nothing more than an immature, reckless kid who thought I was an aspiring film director, while you were an unknown actor appearing in an independent film.
Coincidentally, however, opportunities to run into you kept coming up after that. It just so happened that you worked on feature films with two directors I looked up to as the absolute best and closely followed around that time, and those movies even ended up with similar release dates. In this way, both up close and from afar, I was given the time and circumstances to observe and try to understand a person like you, or rather, the life of an unknown actor.
You were, how should I put it, a rather complex person. First of all, there was the fact that you were known, yet at the same time not quite known. When you were young, you played the role of a teen star in commercials and TV shows quite well, and yet, even now, it doesn’t seem entirely accurate to consider you a celebrity in many ways. Also, while you worked tirelessly to build your standing as an actor, you simultaneously acted as if you had no great desire to make a name for yourself or become famous.
You once introduced yourself as an unknown actor with ten years of obscurity under your belt at some gathering long ago. And since you wanted to act so badly, yet received so few calls, you were driven into a corner, burning with frustration, until you eventually took off for a foreign country where you couldn't even speak the language, became a director yourself, picked up a camera, and pointed it at your own face just to create an opportunity to act for yourself. You even submitted that film to leading film festivals and received favorable reviews. And whenever there was a gathering to meet the audience for a movie you had acted in, you made sure to attend every single one, always putting your whole heart into it.
Looking back, I think the reason I kept getting drawn into your acting first, and subsequently into your life, was because of that certain desperation I felt in them. Even now, when I think of you, your eyes are the very first thing I see. It was a look that became especially visible whenever you immersed yourself in your acting, eyes that held tens of thousands of emotions all at once, yet among them, that distinct desperation was felt most starkly.
So honestly, I used to think to myself, 'This person is probably going to become much more famous soon.' But perhaps it takes the will of heaven and a bit of luck for someone to make a name for themselves, because seeing you fully flourish and freely assert your presence as an actor proved not to be as easy as one might have thought. And I have to mention this fact, too: cold and clear-eyed as it may sound, the filmography you chose consisted of works that, without exception, were all too obviously never going to make money or draw much attention.
Looking back through your past works, one can easily guess without even asking just how much you must have suffered while working with those stubborn directors who had such uncompromising worldviews. After all, I'm not someone who is completely ignorant of that world. On top of that, could those movies have possibly made any money? That's something one could estimate to some degree just by looking at their production budgets and box office earnings. No, perhaps it's more accurate to say that your films were never meant to be placed alongside the words "box office earnings" in the first place.
Still, you endured for a long time. And you held out pretty well. Even though what was visible on the surface was merely the tip of the iceberg, and no one will ever truly or accurately fathom what you went through in your real life, beneath the dark abyss, behind that thick blackout curtain, and beyond the camera.
And after all that, you took part in that mid-length film that could rightly be called your final major work. Of course, that movie too, as if to render all the layers of hardship and the slightest bit of hope completely meaningless, scattered all too easily without drawing almost any attention, like a vow of love written on a white sandy beach and washed away by a single wave. And around that time, as my own life was entering my mid-to-late twenties, I was passing through a period of immense chaos and growing pains, so I wasn’t even in touch with anyone at all, let alone meeting you.
As several seasons passed, according to the bits and pieces of news about you that I occasionally heard through acquaintances, it seemed like you were still pouring your passion into making a comeback, or perhaps not a comeback, but a real start, by changing agencies and taking to the stage with that signature desperation of yours. I remember thinking, 'So he hasn’t completely given up yet. What a relief. I hope things go well for him this time.' That was already several years ago, the last news I heard about you, along with a recent photo of you taken in Varanasi, India, which arrived after another long stretch of time had passed.
Since then, so much has happened in my own life as well, and I’ve made my way through all of it, none of it particularly easy, repeating that pattern of expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting, again and again, until I have come this far. So I don’t think I can any longer see the person I was back then and the person I am now as the same person.
But, Theo, I still think of you from time to time. And whenever I do, I try, in my own way, to make sense of the life of an unknown actor named Theo, or perhaps simply the life of a human being who once wore the name tag of an actor. Then, I can’t help but feel grateful to you. 'I’m going to live like him. I’m going to become someone like him.' The lingering echo you left behind in me, after all, is those very resolutions.
What could possibly be the context behind my feeling that I want to live like you, once an unsung actor? If I were to drag out and list your charms, the traits I want to emulate and learn from you, or your strengths as a person, there’s no reason I couldn’t come up with even ten answers. Yet it feels as though I wasn’t merely trying to express such superficial affection, so I decided to close my eyes a little longer and trace a little deeper.
And then, clear answers began to emerge, much like a full moon reflected in a river, and they turned out to be far more ordinary and familiar than I had imagined. Simply a life of not being overly greedy. A life that fully recognizes the preciousness of precious things. A life that does not put oneself, that is to say, one’s own desires or deficiencies, too far ahead of values more precious or important than oneself. And, although I hesitate to say so because it sounds so abstract and implicit, still, inevitably, a life standing on the side of beautiful things, and enjoying and expressing them.
Hearing this, I’m sure you’d smile bashfully and wave your hands dismissively. Yet, reflecting on the time we spent together, even if those moments couldn’t fully reveal who you are, they seem to show me clearly who I want to become. And because I know those feelings, like the North Star, will guide me well toward becoming a better person, perhaps that’s why I just feel grateful, especially to the person who stands at the very heart of those feelings.
I know that when the time is right, you'll pop right back into view. So I won't worry too much, nor will I ache with yearning. Sometimes I wonder, what if we’ve both changed so much by the time we meet again that we fail to recognize each other. But then again, we both know that human beings are beings who change and change and change again, while at the same time remaining beings whose true nature never changes and remains just as it is forever. So I suppose this worry is, quite literally, unfounded after all. Next time we see each other, let’s just have a heartfelt hug, Theo.
Oscar Wilde may not have been the only person to say so, but in any case, he did say so. It was a passage from among the many letters he sent from prison to Alfred Douglas, the last love of his life and the lover who ultimately brought about his ruin. To put it briefly, it was something along the lines of, “We can never find or feel outside ourselves what does not exist within us.”
I remember how that single line, which I happened upon in my younger days, truly helped me gain a clear insight into where human emotions—or rather, without even going as far as humanity, the countless feelings I myself experience, especially longing, admiration, wistfulness, heartache, and thirst—originate, and what their true source really is.
The reason I bring this up all of a sudden is that a thought occurred to me. That is, if I remember you as a good person and miss you, perhaps it simply means that there is something within me that resembles you, and that those things within and without me are responding to each other, giving rise to this wistful feeling.
So perhaps living through the days until we meet again, polishing and refining that part of you within me to make it even clearer, might be the homework you left behind for me, or maybe even the very fundamental reason we met in the first place. You really left so much with me. I suppose that is why, as I process it all on my own, you come to mind every now and then with each passing season and whenever a familiar breeze blows.
It seems we’re in a season where each of us, in our respective places, is striving with all our might just to keep from falling completely apart. If you happen to be going through a truly difficult time where you are right now, I hope this brings you some comfort: perhaps it would help to think of the precious people who would willingly step up to share that burden with you. Though no one else can carry the weight of life on anyone’s behalf, the tender hearts of those clear souls can still be a source of comfort at times. Once this season passes, a gentle breeze will blow, won’t it? It certainly will. So let’s not hurt too much. And let’s have a little more room in our hearts. I’ll write again, Theo.
© Text & Photos by Tao Jung