Two People Beginning To Fall In Love

“It was not the usual frenzy they were accustomed to. This was the poignancy of two people who were beginning to fall in love; people who could derive satisfaction just from looking at each other.”
-Blessings: A Novel

Photographer: Park Bae

Central Aspects Of Human Life

“Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.”
-When Breath Becomes Air

Photographer: Park Bae

The Difference Between Good & Great

“A good player works hard to win the game everyone else is playing. A great player creates a new game that favors their strengths and avoids their weaknesses.”
-Atomic Habits

Photographer: Park Bae

Letting Down Your Armor

“I think we all wear armor. I think those who don’t are fools, risking the pain of being wounded by the sharp edges of the world, over and over again. But if I’ve learned anything from those fools, it’s that to be vulnerable is a strength most of us fear. It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are. Sometimes I feel the same as you: I can’t risk having people behold me as I truly am. But there’s also a small voice in the back of my mind, a voice that tells me, ‘You will miss so much being guarded.’
Perhaps it begins with one person. Someone you trust. You remove a piece of armor for them; you let the light stream in, even if it makes wince. Perhaps that is how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel.

-Divine Rivals (Letters Of Enchantment)

Photographer: Park Bae

Love Paints The Air

“Love is visible—it paints the air
between two people a different color,
and everyone can see it.”
-The Wedding People

Photographer: Park Bae