(pt 1) This letter is completely baseless

Hi! Welcome to the new faces we have here! I’m so happy to have you. Last week 275 people read my post about my research on and why I avoid conspiracy theories. I am so grateful to share the world from my viewpoint with you and truly still mind boggled when anyone reads it. My hopes in writing this newsletter, is we all get comfortable sharing the pieces of beauty and wisdom we pick up in all of our different ways- the profound to the most simplistic (spoiler alert those are my favorites.) If you aren’t feeling like you have a vision worth sharing, I invite you to read my piece on mundane magic and why it’s most valid than ever to lean into yours.

Earlier this summer two words came to me that just instantly made me smile. Sometimes I feel like my intuition plants ideas into my consciousness that make much more sense a but later down the road and in light of post Helene devastation, overseas wars, and division in the US it’s starting to become clear. Maybe I had read them in passing a few days prior and they hadn’t fully sunk. But regardless, I was happy to have heard them again.

Baseless joy.

I think it was the word baseless that really stuck out. I would say prior to that day I would have put it into the negative connotation category. Thinking about the word “baseless” makes me think of a TV lawyer calling out a cross examining prosecutor for asking a question that they felt was completely irrelevant. Usually painting their client in a poor light. But when paired with “joy” it took on a totally different energy. To me it meant, choosing lightheartedness without reason. Not having to rationalize why that person/ thing/ situation/ experience was worthy of inducing joy.

Here’s one thing you should know about me, I absolutely adore rationalizing. I really like to connect meaning with every experience in my life(so much so I just had to erase two long paragraphs I went into a tangent about hard lessons I have been learning recently that ended up being actually really simply lessons.) Pondering “baseless joy” helped me to realize that silliness and ease are actually a far cry from rationality. And a welcome one at that.

One of my absolute favorite projects I have had the pleasure of working on this year as a strategy advisor is . My dear friend Rebecca launched the currently genre-less comedy project after she found improv and screen writing post her own dark night of the soul. What I love so much about this hilarious undertaking, and what I think the entertainment industry is shifting towards, is the community involvement. Feeling like you just aren’t a passenger zoning out into someone else’s creative world, but an active participant in building it. Conscious escapism perhaps? We have a group text of other friends along for the ride and plotting out characters and scenarios makes me laugh so hard I have to remember that I have had 2 kids and should open the texts only after sitting. When Rebecca starts to question why she is even doing this in the first place stating that is has no point, she’s not trying to get “famous”, she knows she isn’t the world’s greatest actor or screenwriter- I am quick to remind her that that is the WHOLE POINT. It’s silly, it’s fun, it doesn’t have to make sense now but anything that makes people this happy & pulls out creativity from so many others will absolutely lead somewhere. She’s been brilliantly soft launching characters on tiktok, leading to the confusion of “I know something’s going on here but I just don’t know what” that the internet hates or loves. Last week she collabed with my insanely talented pal Cooper on one of her character introductions disguised as a home tour (so freaking genius.) It got 200k views, 50k of which were most likely mine.

@dial_momI can’t believe this $1.5 million house!! Home Owner 👩🏻: Terri Ducacis; Location 📍: Charleston, SC; Occupation: Female Empowerment Business Owner #house #housetour #houseoftiktok #home #homedecor #tour #fy #south #southcarolina #cats #catsoftiktok #cat #catlover #justforfun #storytime

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I think that adult women are giving a kind of shitty list of items that are deemed joy-approved. Wellness and spirituality have been appropriated and commoditized to a “luxury” category. Something to aspire to have when you have all the money, look like the yoga guru, have the nanny and help so you have the 3 hours a day for your “self care.” Clothing needs to be ever changing, ever on “trend,” never repeated, photographed well, flattering, very expensive or very cheap, deemed worthy after someone got over 4 figures of likes after a photo of them in it. Having our skin worked on is how we relax? Hour plus long workouts and keeping up with the appropriate amount of protein intake like it’s the stock market just don’t spark the same joy for me as rolling up to a friends house with my 7 year olds sparkle packed caboodle shimmerizing all my friends. (Hey to the sparkly inside and out !)

I invite you to think of something you can do over the next week that is free or very cheap, has no rhyme or reason other then it could make you and/or other people feel ease, silly, baseless joy. I love to send texts that take up the whole screen and are sent with balloons over the most trivial responses. I went for a walk a few days ago and then just laid in the grass at the park. I’m sure I looked like I was having a menty b but it was glorious friends. Try to give 3 compliments at the grocery store next time you go. If there’s ever been a time to shine a little brighter for no GD reason, it’s now.

Let me know in comments your favorite ways to spark joy that make zero sense and have approximately no transactional value!

Much love from the author of this baseless newsletter,

Victoria