I've been noticing that too many people are just so casual about everything these days. They had fun, they're kind of into gardening, they're friends with someone, their time in big sur was "really nice", they're "talking" to someone, or maybe casually went to a live show.

What about the fire that friend stirs in your lungs, or the way those sweeping green cliffs touch a shade of blue so surreal your eyes can hardly drink the color, or the way your garden makes you create and nurture and build, or how those tiny plants make you believe in more things than you once thought possible? What about the way you could melt into a persons voice because they feel like home and another dimension all at once, or how the sheer sound of that live guitar or beat cried the tears you never could due to an artist's years of practice, leaving you breathless and released?

Why do you like to paint? Because it's how you communicate the images that inhabit your heart. Why do you like to take the long way back? Because the car gives you a sense of freedom as though you're flying, and somehow feel adrenalized by every exit that whirls by. You taught your first class? That's beautiful because you overcame doubt. You introduced your 9 month old child to a puppy today? If that's not magic then I don't know what is.

Stop downplaying enthusiasm or apologizing for excitement. Enthusiasm and excitement are the very things that propel the world. Stop worrying about what others may think because you regularly drip passion while they play it "cool" and disenchanted. I can tell you with total confidence that although they may not ever admit this, those very folks secretly adore and envy your fire, but lack the courage to embody and drive it themselves.

If you love something, then really love it. If that trip, person, or afternoon opened up new worlds and mindsets, then by all means, write or paint or play about it, or maybe even tell someone, and tell it the way it really is, exactly how it feels. It is beautiful to feel in a body built for feeling, and exist intensely on a planet exuding intensity, because life in itself is both intense and beautiful. There's absolutely no need or reason to pretend otherwise.

Remember wonder. It's not something reserved for other places, times, or events. Wonder lives right here in the heart and thick of it all, always in the now. And it is anything but casual