Dear Paloma
This is a letter I wrote to my dear friend Paloma that I am publishing on my Substack. Dedicated to Paloma, of course.
Instagram gave me a little meme today that said “sometimes miracles are just good people with kind hearts that the universe sent to you,” and I sent that to you via WhatsApp, and I just…I just thought of you and my friend Elaine. Both women with an intensity of heart, intelligence, whimsy, and joy that I imagine is where the beginning of a new world begins.
I also received your postcard and broke down ever so slightly when I read your message. “I hope that you, too, have found moments to simply absorb, rather than feel the need to constantly convert thought into action.”
Even though we have been friends only since March? No February. Our friendship began on February 21st, at 5:30 pm at the Davenport Dining Hall. Even though I’ve known you for only a couple of months, I feel like you are perhaps one of the most impactful friends I have had the privilege to meet. The depth of which you metabolize the world allows me to glimpse compassion beyond my limits, beyond my own tiredness and myopic temptations to spiral downward.
When my mind and body begin to crumble, the thought of you helps me straighten up, put my chin up, and move forward. Loosen my chest. Unfasten my buttons. Breathe.
That is what it means to be your friend. You’re like summer wind. Effortlessly regenerative. Morning dew. The sound of laughter carried by the wind.
My work in climate is a testament to our friendship. I think that most of my life is a direct labor of love. In my earlier years, this energy was misguided. I don’t blame myself. As a child, unlocking the approval I sought from the two figures who mattered most to me (my parents) meant academic excellence. Academic excellence was the mechanism through which I could fulfill that apex need. Along the way, I grew disillusioned by that logic, and my “apex need” shifted. I began operating on the logic that I wanted to become the kind of person that my younger self would be proud of. I was deeply sentimental to my “inner child” and would constantly obsess over the idea of: If my younger self met me today, would she admire the person I became? The passions I chased followed with the vigor of fulfilling the ambitious little girl I had been.
Nowadays, I am disillusioned by the idea of ambition itself. I do not find intrinsic value in being ambitious for the sake of ambition. This is an entirely different conversation in and of itself that I will address later, but to summarize: meritocracy? Pssh. It is largely a neoliberal stint that is largely constructed by predetermined factors rather than merit in its traditional theory of action. So, what then?
I found my answer in climate action. To me, climate action is the perfect intersection of all of my interests: biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, sociology, politics, psychology, political philosophy, systems thinking, systems change, economics, creativity, art, poetry, communications/messaging, ethics, play, and the great big beautiful Mama Earth. It is the only problem I have encountered that cannot be solved by a single discipline or a single perspective. It is an endlessly stimulating intellectual puzzle, and equally actionable/emotionally moving. And of course, I think that nature is so beautiful and the thing that should be protected at all costs on this planet. The story behind this arrival of reasoning is quite personal, and something I’ll share in person.
Anyway, all of these elements have made climate my deepest passion.
The past few months (since February) have honestly been a gradual progression in my obsession with climate. Compounded with our politics, I’ve self-radicalized significantly since February. I think that December 2024 Jae-Hee would find July 2025 Jae-Hee to be quite intense.
It’s been isolating. I don’t feel like I can relate to my friends as much, particularly those who are not as interested in climate as I am. I am growing used to ranting passionately and being met with a blank stare. I am steeling myself for the disappointment when my friends do not embrace my intensity. But all of this is worth it. Yesterday, I met a 4-month-old baby girl. Her eyes were the size of grapes: large, blue-ish brown orbs and completely untouched by the cruelty of this world. Her heart is pure. When I smile, her pink mouth curls into a little gurgle, in complete fascination and willingness to imitate what she is seeing. We are playing. We are bonding. This tiny human being is reminding me of what it is to be alive: to recognize that your aliveness is measured by others. Who are you but a witnessing? Who would you be if there were no one else in the universe to witness you? My face is a reflection of photons, registered by your optic nerve. My name is breathed into life by another person’s vocal chords, rippling across space-time to reach my eardrums.
You are a piece of the universe witnessing itself.
I want to be measured by love.
Climate action is tiring. It is always a fight. Everyday. Recently, I’ve gotten more tired and distraught when I realize that my friends are starting to become a part of the very system we critiqued growing up. The apathetic adults. The bot-like behavior. The compartmentalization of logic. The obscurity of ethics. It won’t prevent me from continuing to do what I do, but I am realizing, like my friend Katherine said, that my expectations of people were too high. But a part of me still believes that we can change. A part of me still believes that everyone does want to do good for the world. It is simple. 15 minutes a day. Subscribe to heatmap, follow @grist and @atmos on Instagram. Stay engaged and informed. Talk about climate with your peers. Figure out if your career is aligned with the future you want the world to have. You only have one life you’re gonna live. Only one.
When I was working in crypto, I met a bunch of people in their 50s-60s who came to these silly “regenerative” blockchain groups because they were having a mid-life crisis and called themselves “corporate refugees” after leaving finance. It took them 30 years to figure that out.
I’m here to — quoting Elaine— “prove that the world does not punish idealists as hard as the fearmongerers of capitalism say, and that a good number of us prevail.”
Even though it is hard, I would never stop. Because becoming a climate advocate is one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. Climate action has led me to my greatest friends. Such as you. Such as Elaine. Such as all the folks I met recently in DC at our climate conference. I’ve found my tribe. The process of living my climate activism is a process of manifesting my dream world: a world where every person extends their compassion beyond themselves and even humans — where our compassion extends to embrace the entire biosphere, biotic and abiotic. An ecosystem of care. An ecosystem of critical thinking. An ecosystem of abundance, imagination, and cooperative flourishing. There is so much intrinsic joy that sprouts from this work because the path leads to people who belong to a world that doesn’t exist yet, but every time I meet another one of them, this imaginary world seems closer to existence. My dreams anchor in reality. Like an infant mycelium curling its fist around a new crumb of soil.
It is in these moments when my isolation flickers into hope. When my intensity and my deep emotions no longer feel like a glitch. When it feels like there’s nothing wrong with me. When it feels like I’m not crazy for being the way I am.
“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.”
Ciao cacao,
JHB ₊˚ʚ 🌱 ₊˚✧ ﾟ.
"I want to be measured by love." absolute bar