Goodbye Again by Jonny Sun
Goodbye, Again is like that slow-burn indie film that compels you to hit pause in your life and navigate the inner chaos that you’ve been hiding from. In the film, you are sitting with Jonny Sun on the steps beside a river, listening to him. Occasionally, you nod, smiling wistfully, sometimes lost in your own thoughts, resigning to past events and future fears. He is a stranger you met by chance while watching the sunset, yet in the conversation it feels as if both of you have known each other for a long time. Yes, that is where Sun’s essays bring me to: a world that embraces vulnerability and imperfection—one that walks slowly, relishing the moment, regardless of whether it is sadness or joy. Through his approachable, vivid writing, and intentional illustrations, Sun shares his heartfelt reflections on life.
The beauty of this book is that Sun, while contemplating his personal experiences, relationships, and plants, shed light on areas in my life which I have not taken the time to understand. For one, I resonated with Sun’s struggles on productivity, the need to just do something and make good use of time, even when it’s time to relax and do nothing. Time is reduced to a mere currency that we use and we expect a return for investment. By framing time as a resource, we over-quantify our human experience and treat ourselves as machines. As Sun mentions in On peace, deadlines orientate our soul towards a specific goal, becoming the reason we live and breathe. Once completed, we look for another deadline, and then another one, sometimes creating one ourselves just to feel alive again. This is something I’m trying to unlearn. I don’t want to just count time, I want to live in it.
Among the essays that I’ve bookmarked, those that stood out are about the plants that Sun tended to. I’m surprised by the wisdom we can learn from taking care of these living things which cannot speak. The essays Succulent and Croton talk about how, when old leaves wither and die, we should let them go instead of trying to keep them on the plant. If these dying leaves are not pruned, they will drain the plant of its resources, energy, and eventually, its life. That is the cost of holding onto old things. We deprive ourselves of the opportunity for new things to come and change us for the better. Then, in Pothos, Sun writes about how he placed a Pothos plant under direct sunlight with the intention to help it grow and ended up burning it instead because Pothos, by nature, didn’t need much sunlight. This reminded me that everything, including humans, requires different conditions to thrive. What works well for one might be detrimental for another.
Sun’s writing is poignant and can leave you feeling nostalgic. However, the melancholy can be addictive and debilitating. If you are not in the headspace to ruminate over heavy topics such as anxiety and self-worth, some of the essays will not be motivating to read. Truth be told, I bought this book a few years back during one of the toughest times in my life, when I was emotionally and spiritually spent. I tried to read it then, but could not get past half of the book because, even though the writings moved me deeply, they triggered unwanted feelings of anxiety which I was not ready to face yet. The fact that I have finished this book is an achievement of its own, a sign that I have outgrown the past. I’m sure I will re-read this book in the future and glean new insights from it.