Presence is the quiet rebellion.

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A gentle note from my heart to yours.

Darling friend,

I've been thinking lately about something that feels important to share with you, and I hope you'll forgive me for getting a little personal for a moment.

I recently read that the average American watches about 24 hours of television per week. When I first saw that number, I had to sit with it for a while, because the mathematics of it took my breath away. If you stretch that out over what we might call our prime years, let's say from 30 to 70, that equals roughly 5.7 years of continuous time.

Or to put it another way, it's equivalent to about 25 full-time work years of hours.

“The average Amercian is losing 25 full-time work years to watching TV. That doesn’t include hours spent on mobile phones.”

Twenty-five years. Can you imagine?

You might first say, “Well, wait a minute - that’s not me!” Or is it?

Many of us turn on the television around dinner time, perhaps eating our meal in front of it, and then watch a few episodes before bed. It’s 10 or 11 PM before we turn off the TV. And yeah, that’s 3 to 4 hours right there. Times that daily. “Binge-watching,” “binge-worthy,” “bed rotting”… it’s all part of our vocabulary now. Or how about our sports fans who love to watch the big games back-to-back on the weekends?

Now, please don't misunderstand me! I'm not here to judge. We all need rest, and stories on a screen can be a comfort. This isn’t about shame, it’s about choice & noticing the quiet trade we’re making without realizing it. The dear Lord knows I have my own favorite films I turn to when I'm feeling under the weather or need comfort. But what struck me so deeply is how we don't often think about time this way, in its accumulated weight.

Those 25 years are like working an entire second career, but with no paycheck, no skills gained, and no advancement. And you likely paid for it - with cable TV or a streaming subscription.

It also made me think about my own rhythms. Here’s a small fact: I don’t even keep a television in my living room! It’s why I've structured my days around books, gardens, and the gentle research that goes into planning beautiful experiences. Not because I'm trying to be different or superior, but because I discovered, quite by accident, that when you reclaim even a portion of those hours, something magical happens.

Those evenings I spend researching a hidden garden or reading about the history of a small museum, planning walks through neighborhoods I haven't explored yet, that time compounds too. It builds into experiences, into knowledge, into the kind of rich, layered life I never want to take for granted.

When people tell me they don't have time to learn a language, or plan thoughtful trips, or dive deep into their curiosities, my heart aches a little. Because the time is there. It's just being quietly rented out to someone else's programming, literally and figuratively.

“Did you know that the Oxford University Press named “brainrot” as their word for 2024? ”

Did you know that the Oxford University Press named "brainrot" as their word for 2024? Honestly, it breaks my heart. What a diagnosis of our collective attention. But it also feels like a gentle wake-up call, doesn't it?

This is part of why I've chosen to share my life with you the way I do (and why I have created the new series I am launching soon) not as a "content creator" feeding algorithms, but as someone who believes in the old-fashioned generosity of simply sharing what brings joy.

No paywalls, no endless selling, no ad pop-ups - just honest stories and experiences (my personal goal is to keep the costs under twenty euros), because beauty and cultivation shouldn't be purchased; they should be reclaimed.

You have 168 hours in a week, love. How do you want to spend them? What do you want them to compound into over the course of your beautiful, unrepeatable life?

Life is a collection of chosen hours — let’s choose them well.

This philosophy shapes everything I share with you, from my seasonal bucket lists to my slowest Parisian afternoons. Because in a world that profits from our scattered attention, choosing presence feels like the most radical act of self-love.