⨺❤️🔥 On February 26th, 2026, @jaredleto liked my comment on Instagram :)) It was on a reel that was posted very shortly before the promised release of a "new" single from a previous album, A Beautiful Lie. You can find the original post here. The single was actually recorded during A Beautiful Lie but was one song which didn't get into the album and was vaulted until now. Now, as part of the 20th anniversary ABL celebrations it has come out for a deluxe album edition.
◊🔑💫 I always love to write a post here just honestly expressing my perception of what the interaction seems to mean. That said, I must admit that I am not yet finished the thought process of interpreting the interaction. For that reason, I will likely return to this post and edit it later once I've thought about it more.
◊💐 However, there are a few things I can share even at this time, which are obvious in my mind. For one, I'm glad that my friend Mary @love_30stm_echelon was also in the notification, since she has been on topic for me lately in my thoughts about Jared and the band.
◊❤️🔥 There is sooo much I would like to eventually say about this issue, but long story short, Mary's instagram handle starts with the word love, and I feel she really is a meaningful illustration of how there can be love between a band and the fandom (in MARS' case that's called Echelon or family) — and it obviously goes both ways. Not just one way from the fan, and the band sends back a shallow warmth, more something commercially branded and on some deep levels, incredibly removed and distant.
◊🖤 Thinking of Mary's name "love", the most gorgeous name — I am painfully reminded of the fact that many people grew up as children in households in which "I love you" was not said very much except between Mom & Dad or any romantic interests, if at all. And so, tragically, they were not actually adjusted to the notion of universal love which transcends limiting containers of definition and category without inappropriately expressing itself in wrong ways, such as imposing sexuality onto a situation where that doesn't belong or of course imposing conditions. Without a proper upbringing, many do not recognize how love can be everpresent despite agendas of getting what we want — such as childhood family scenarios that impress how love is non-negotiable even when the child is in trouble for acting up. And it's not all about chlidhood — we also live in a very sick society as adults — but this is just a useful example for my point.
◊🖤🖤 Right now, thinking about the pattern of how my discussions about my interactions with Jared and 30STM have been building through an integrated timeline documentation — I can't help but worry that when I express that love is two-ways between me and them, this may be dramatically misconstrued due to widespread dysfunction or inability in so many to even grasp the word, let alone what I mean by the word. My main worry is that people might think "They do not love you — they only feel distant commercial warmth at best — so why do you delusionally presume so?". Another fear too is that they would assume that I am in the same confused state as they are, unable to experientially perceive the intrinsic quality of safety that love truly embodies — and therefore I am working within unsafe psychological constructs which have degrading longterm effects on my mental health (by thinking that I am loved by Jared and the band).
◊🔑 Frankly, there's much more where that came from in terms of current unprocessed fears and discomforts which have now come up for me about how these writings may be taken the wrong way and fail entirely to convey my intentions. That said, I'm very confident. I just know deep down and have such a gut feeling that continuing to document myimpressions of our public interactions will not only be hugely rewarding for me, but also pay off way more later I think. I will likely learn a lot from this tense dynamic in my creative flow — perhaps reconfigure my presentation of this info in a beautiful way over time — and certainly achieve great things.
◊❤️❤️🔥 But one thing's for sure, I'm very confident with this post and just what I'm at least saying today about the meaning of this interaction. Since it's the 9th interaction, in a string of very consistent and ongoing ones since a certain meaningful time in our shared history, it's obviously more than just a professional resonance of like minded shared perspectives as artists — it's also just love. I could see this comment like in one way as only even meaning "Hey Ba, love you." because it was a pretty simple comment (despite the outstanding emoji quality haha) and it's more just that I'd be chosen to interact with. Why me? Why not someone else instead? Well, sometimes love draws us towards some people and sometimes it doesn't. Just as love inherently is not about ego tripping, picturing people as unequal to each other or separation mentality such as loving one means not loving another — in all that, it is like love why I have been connected with (and why I've connected with them too).
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