Presence Is Love

Dear Thomas, James, and Margot,

If there’s one kind of love I’ve had to fight to understand, it’s this:
The love of simply being with someone.
No agenda. No mission. No goal to accomplish.
Just presence—undistracted, unhurried, undivided.

I haven’t been great at that.

Most people who know me would probably tell you I’m present. I look you in the eye. I ask good questions. I sit with you when you need me. And all of that is true. But if I’m being fully honest with you—and I always want to be—I’ve learned that much of my presence has come through the lens of purpose.

I’ve always been driven. Laser-focused. A heat-seeking missile for whatever I believed I was meant to do. And if what you needed or what we were sharing aligned with that mission—then yes, I was all in. I was attentive, locked-in, unshakably present. But if it didn’t… if it didn’t serve the outcome I was chasing or the problem I was solving… well, I was still there. But not really. Not in the way people deserve.

This isn’t something I’m proud of, but it’s something I’ve come to understand more clearly as I’ve gotten older.

You see, I’ve lived most of my life at full tilt. Intensity is my natural state. I don’t do many things halfway. My mind is almost always working—calculating, creating, pushing forward. I carry a thousand things inside my head, and for a long time, I thought that was the cost of being effective. Of being great. And maybe in some ways, it was. But the tradeoff is real.

Because while I was solving the next thing, I was sometimes missing the only thing.

I can’t tell you how many moments I’ve spent physically close to someone, but mentally down a tunnel. Thinking through strategy. Replaying a conversation. Planning three moves ahead. I wasn’t zoning out—I was just consumed. Even in quiet rooms, even in peaceful mornings or car rides or bedtime pauses, my mind was loud. And the people around me could feel it, even if they couldn’t name it.

There’s a kind of absence that doesn’t show up in your calendar or on a screen. It shows up in the invisible distance between you and the people you love most.

And I never wanted that.

What I’ve come to understand—what I’m still learning—is that presence is not the same as proximity. And it’s not the same as usefulness or shared ambition or mutual momentum. Presence is about laying your sword down. It’s about letting someone else be the center of the moment. It’s about saying: Right now, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Nothing else I need to do. I’m yours.

That’s real love. That’s real presence.

And it’s something I want to give you more of. Not just because it feels good to be received that way, but because it’s right. It’s what you deserve. And it’s what I want you to be able to give others too.

I’m trying now in ways I wasn’t before. I’m trying to slow down. To let silence be silence, not strategy. To let rest be rest, not guilt. To let time with you be time with you—not time I’m borrowing from something else.

Because I’ve learned something that ambition will never teach you:
The moments that really matter in life won’t arrive with urgency. They’ll arrive quietly. Softly. In between things. And if you’re not there, you’ll miss them.

I don’t want to miss any more.

So I’m practicing. Every day. Practicing how to be still. Practicing how to set down the weight of what’s next. Practicing how to listen not with my mind, but with my heart. I won’t be perfect. But I promise I’ll keep showing up more fully than I did before.

And I want you to remember this, long after I’m gone:
Your attention is the most generous thing you can offer another person.
Not your opinion. Not your advice. Not your achievements.
Your attention. Your presence.

It’s how we say “I love you” without words.

So give it freely. And receive it gratefully.
Because presence is love.

And I’ve never loved anything in this world more than I love you.

—Dad

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If you’re still here, my hope is this message made you pause—and maybe even softened something in you. We live in a world that asks us to move fast, but the people we love need us to slow down.

I publish new episodes every weekday, including True North letters every Monday. You can subscribe on Substack, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

And if you know someone who might need this today, please share it with them. Sometimes the right words, at the right time, can change everything.

Until tomorrow—show up, slow down, and remember: your presence is the most generous gift you can give.