One fateful day, I was watching some crows in a fountain — delightfully playful and clever, fighting over a piece of candy that had dropped under the water and was being held down by the pressure from above. One of them grabbed a straw and used it to push the candy to the side so the other could grab it. They flew off fighting over their prize, as I was narrating the whole thing to my kids, laughing, delighted.

A stranger nearby said, "Your kids are lucky to have a mom who sees the joy in the world like you. I feel better just listening in."

It had been years since anyone said something like that to me.

Maybe my brain wasn't something to be ashamed of. Maybe being silly and full of wonder is a better way to connect to people than being pious and serious.

It's now officially 5 months since I stepped away from paid labor for a sabbatical. Everything I read beforehand warned me the most important thing I could do was nothing — not plan the next 10 years, not study an industry, not lay groundwork for a new company. Just nothing.

Nothing has been the hardest and best thing I've ever done (not done?)

I have always been the person who figures things out, gets things done, takes responsibility, shoulders and carries. The last five months I've been a silent, meditating nun by comparison. I do the bare minimum for survival. I wander museums on a whim. I wear silly, bright outfits that make me smile. I shaved my head because it was hot. I read Graeber and Ostrom and fall into YouTube lectures on chaos theory just because.

I've let my curiosity drive everything I do for five months.

I thought this would be restful — that my brain would go quiet and I'd learn my limits and go back to work. Instead it woke up in ways I never expected.

It's also made me angry. I've had time to sit with what's true about human beings — our development, our success as a species — and time to watch nearly every institution do the opposite of what people actually need. Companies raise money while doing nothing meaningful for customers, employees, or the world, chasing an exit that only pays out the investors.

Watching Practical Magic again got me ranting about the intentions we set — and don't set — and how hard we work to run from the very world we maintain. Reading Graeber and Ostrom opened my eyes to how we organize, how we either protect our resources or sell them off. Scrolling Pinterest got me back into my crafting room, playing with saved bits and pieces with no expectation of a finished object. Which then led to finished objects. Objects I won't actually be sharing because it's an undies pattern I finally love that I shan't be modeling for the world.

On the positive side, making things for fun, reading for fun, doing things for fun has lifted some of the shame I've carried. Uninterrupted time with my kids has done more for my feelings of motherly inadequacy than any stint in therapy. Tracking migraine triggers finally got me the documentation to land a modern-ish CGRP.

Letting go of shame as the primary motivator — the one that shows up as "I really should be doing The Thing" — has let me actually recognize it when it appears. Shame is quiet and sneaky. Our whole society runs on it; it's the water in the fish-and-water story. It keeps workers, employers, parents, children, neighbors, customers, and vendors in line without any real clarity about what we're supposed to do, why, or how. We just look around and match everyone else, terrified to admit we don't actually know what we're doing.

Even though deep down, we know that nobody knows. We are all just making it up, and then assigning intention and planning to what everyone else is doing, as if what lives in our own head couldn't possibly live in someone else's too.

I'm learning the value of purposeless attention.

A therapist back in 2011 gave me a wake-up lecture. She told me I was on the path to bitterness. (Please go read Mike Montero's piece "How to Be a Petty Motherfucker." Even if the language bothers you. Maybe especially if it bothers you.)

Petty is motivating. But bitterness is the black hole your whole life collapses into — you start seeing the world as your enemy and withdraw your spirit from all light. I'm far too vivacious for that BS! Once I saw where I was headed, I started making changes.

The biggest change was my relationship with my then-jailor of a husband. He could control my environment. He couldn't control my spirit. I started finding ways to release it anyway. I opened my eyes and saw gratitude — birds, light, the moon, stars, life flitting and surviving without bitterness all around me. I found joy in my children's antics. I eventually found a little space to love myself and my own unique way of seeing the world, thanks to the comments of an observant and bold stranger.

I've come to realize that people who like to think of themselves as intelligent, but who lack real creative intelligence, are often deeply committed to making joyful creatives feel shame. Who'dathunk.

Now I know shame's real power, and I see how it operates. Shame isn't a motivator. It's a form of chains — a prison used by people who don't want to face the possibility that someone else might have the answers, or a view of the world that makes it better. It threatens the control of anyone unwilling to do the ego-defying work of experiencing wonder.

Shame is a stop signal. It blankets, buries, smothers. That's why shaming yourself into change doesn't work. It's why swimming in the shame all around us is making us all talk, walk, dress, and think the same. Shame is a weapon. Weapons don't create, and you can't use shame to build a joyful life. Humans need joy to survive — we need it to connect fully to each other.

How do we get out of the shame prison? Look around. Admire the way a bee burrows into a flower. Laugh with a child — better yet, find some children and let them lead the wonder class for the day. They're extraordinary at it. If they ask you a question, don't give an educated answer. Ask what they think, and believe them. They're probably more right than you imagine. As with any skill, it takes practice.

Wander purposelessly.

You cannot schedule wonder. Shame is very obedient about schedules — you can always squeeze some shame into any activity, no matter how stressful. But wonder requires openness. It wanders in and flits around like dandelion fluff, going where it wants, when it wants — though "wants" is loose here. It's more like it discovers a path as it goes, requiring the same lack of schedule and force. It requires sustained belief in non-belief — a willingness to let the universe tell you a story in small pieces that only connect later, when you stumble on another seemingly unrelated bit of fluff. And your brain lights up like a million candles, your cells declare EUREKA — maybe without the bath and the naked sprint through ancient Greece.

Only then will you understand the connection between the crows and the blanket and the stars and the song on the way home from work that one day. It may not mean anything to anyone else, but because you were paying attention, you receive the message meant for only you, at only this minute. You don't want to miss it.

So please — wander without purpose. Look for the magic and believe it when it whispers. Accept that whimsy is part of a whole life well lived. And when shame shows up, thank it for trying to keep you safe, then remind it to kindly go kick rocks.