Dear Otea:

I’m surrounded by people who equate productivity with worth. How do I make space for joy in a culture that treats it like a waste of time?

Cara Mia:

Come closer to a non-human being. A purring pet on a lounger. A wildflower climbing up through the cracks in your sidewalk. Consider the sources from which this world already grows and the way these things already go.

A plant or a pet isn’t concerned with the output of its essence. How much or how well or how long. Instead, they exude. In sun. In shade. All the days of their lives spent spilling their goodness without measure.

Each of us has a cologne that comes off of our skin. A scent that changes the chemistry of each room that we enter. And that changes the course of this world by inviting the air into the sweetness of our wake. Our heat turns heads and it turns the tides.

Your time here is a gift from all entities. The grass blades. The holy spirits. The dearly departeds. All of the ones whose bodies built this place for you to lie down.

Will you refuse this gift by believing the lie that you must pay rent for your right to exist?

Each time you fight to “make” something, you turn away from what’s already been given. You push every living thing farther from you, when all it really wants is to perfume you. Every thing that’s alive already makes more of this life without having to make a damn thing.

You will have to be bold and be brave to take back the time that is trying to be taken from you. To double and triple-dip your hands into the deep well of delight that’s been waiting all its life for your arrival. This is not languishing. This is lingering in the love that is your right and your duty for the rest of your days.

Make no mistake. You have only one thing to do here on earth: to give this world the pleasure of giving off its goodness by giving yourself over to the pleasure of all of it.


Un abbraccio forte,

Otea