MY OPINION ESSAYS
Camellia Japonica
Digital design, precision-cut 100lb cotton rag, mounted on Arches cold press watercolor paper
1/1, October 9, 2026, Jean-Marie Lee
Furutsubaki No Rei Japanese Folk Tale About Camellias:
yokai.com/furutsubakinorei/?srsltid=AU7…
Life - Life = Zero
In 2026, we as a species like to believe we have evolved beyond our primitive past, yet we remain entirely trapped in the currents of mob culture. We see these mobs gathering from all angles of politics, shouting with absolute certainty. As an artist, I witness daily how easily the human mind buys into constructed narratives. In my studio, I conjure things into existence all the time—sketches, intricate paper cuts, conceptual patterns. They exist squarely as ideas in my mind before they are delivered with enough zeal, enthusiasm, and contagious charisma to make another person believe in their reality.
Our legal system operates on this exact same human architecture. We pass judgment while simultaneously theorizing that American jurisprudence is a detached, mechanical science separate from religion. But the truth is that "Common Law," or any legal framework, is a narrative rooted in historical philosophy and moral principles. If we peel back the institutional layers, we are forced to ask three uncomfortable questions:
Do we really know anything to be absolute truth?
Do we have the humility to admit our doubts?
Why do so many subscribe to a faith centered on a savior who was executed by the state, only to turn around and use earthly employment to justify execution?
When we refuse to examine these contradictions, our certainty is not a reflection of truth, but rather a byproduct of a system that knows no alternative.
Death is a zero-sum reality. In the arithmetic of human suffering, you cannot multiply zero to achieve a positive value. Taking a life to avenge a life does not add worth, heal a community, or balance a cosmic scale; it simply leaves society holding two zeros instead of one. If we bring the laws of physics into this philosophical space, the contradiction becomes even more stark. The First Law of Thermodynamics dictates that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed; they can only change form.
Execution does not cleanly erase a life from existence. Instead, it performs a massive act of systemic dampening—shattering a volatile, complex concentration of potential energy rather than doing the difficult work of converting it into positive kinetic output through reform, restitution, or transformation. Because that energy cannot be destroyed, the trauma of the execution chamber does not vanish. It transitions into a heavy, toxic residue of systemic grief, moral degradation, and cyclical violence that ripples outward into our families, our culture, and our collective conscience.
Instead of suppressing and destroying life, a truly advanced society would seek to harness and redirect that human energy to repair the world.
Because our legal systems are not divine machines—because they are built entirely by fragile, fallible human beings—we desperately need a structural anchor to keep us from collapsing into vengeance. There is a beautiful, centuries-old prayer that provides exactly that, reminding us of our deep, personal accountability to one another when mercy feels the most difficult to extend:
Christ has no body now on Earth but yours. No hands, no feet on Earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which He blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are His body. Christ has no body now on Earth but yours.
When we demand the ultimate punishment, we are choosing how to use those hands, those feet, and those eyes. It takes immense courage to look past anger and see the shared humanity in someone, even in the most broken and difficult circumstances. My prayer for our nation, and for every person who holds the heavy burden of deciding on these matters, is that we find that courage. May our collective path forward be guided not by the finality of destruction, but by wisdom, grace, and an earnest desire to bring light into the places that need it the most.
Posted on: Wednesday, October 14, 2026