Dear quarter lives,

Once upon a time on a planet right here called Earth, there was a disease called Panic that infected and killed everyone except for the Donkeys. Panic spread very fast. No one knew exactly what caused this kind of disease or how it spread so fast, but everyone knew that the Donkeys were immune to it. So the Humans began to kidnap the Donkeys and lock them up in laboratories, carrying out all sorts of experiments on them. So much new fancy equipment was built especially for these experiments, but unfortunately it didn’t help the Humans understand why the Donkeys weren’t getting infected by Panic. So instead the Humans started to hunt the Donkeys and eat them. Many Donkeys were orphaned, and many others widowed. But the Humans didn’t care. They were so afraid of dying that they were blindly killing other innocent creatures. Rumours began to spread speculating why the Humans were engaging in such brutalities. Some declared that the Humans didn’t even carry out experiments on the Donkeys, they were just so angry at God for not killing the Donkeys as well they decided to even out the scales themselves. Others dismissed such claims suggesting more believable ones such as it was the disease that was doing that to them, that the Humans have gone mad. You see not everyone died from Panic, many more people in fact stayed alive but the fear of death would never leave them. Panic, you see, was an incurable disease because it went right to the mind and there was no coming back from an infected mind. That’s why the Donkeys didn’t get it. They had no minds because what was the point. They didn’t have any use for them since they were always keen on remaining exactly where they were, just here in one place at one time. They had no desire for time travel like the Humans did. The Donkeys couldn’t understand why the Humans put in so much effort to plan to go somewhere that didn’t exist. For The Donkeys relaxing and having a good time was all that really mattered so they had no use for worry because everything that mattered was already here and happening. They weren’t an ambitious bunch like the Humans. They were happy exactly as they were and that self-satisfaction and contentedness is exactly what saved them from Panic. Panic tormented the Humans for centuries. Now because of Panic, the Humans are going extinct. If only a Donkey would tell them to relax, the Panic would all just come to an end. But the Humans burnt all their bridges with the Donkeys. And the Donkeys aren’t a resentful bunch, they’re just keen on staying alive so staying away from the Humans who butchered them was one way they made sure of it. But the Humans still had one last hope. They too had burnt that bridge but since God isn’t worried about being killed then He might just be the One to call on. So the Humans began to do just that. They started calling God. At first, He didn’t answer. He wanted to be sure this was a genuine call. He wanted to see if the Humans really cherished Life, if they were so grateful for it that they were prepared to surrender their egos for Life’s sake and beg. And beg, the Humans did. They began to beg God to answer their prayers. They would even wake up in the middle of the night to pray. Finally, the Humans were so desperate and felt so powerless that they all began to cry. They cried so much that all the rivers that had dried up were filling up and returning to the planet once again. The air that was so dry and hoarse began to soften and feel wet again. The earth they stood on was quenching her thirst and drinking once again. The hot fires raging in the Humans’ bellies for centuries were finally put out by the their tears. They began to cool down. And as they cooled down, their fevers began to disappear. And as their fevers began to disappear, their minds began to settle, and as their minds began to settle, their eyes slowly opened. And as their eyes opened and light came rushing into them, they realised they had been blinded by Panic and that they were finally cured. They had survived the plague that had devoured their species for centuries. And all they had to do was cry. It wasn’t God that saved them, it was the crying for Life that did. You see for the Humans to be able to cry, they had to surrender their power over to something they believed was more powerful than them. That’s why they called for God. And since then, the Humans on Earth have had crying ceremonies to celebrate Life and to make sure they regularly surrender to God.

So dear quarter lives, the morale of the story is that the remedy for panic is to cry a little. Tears are a great way to release some of those pent up sensations and emotions that we lock into our bodies, dangerously so, to the point that they begin to leak into our minds. So for the sake of both your physical health and mental health, give permission to yourself to cry whenever you need to. No one is too strong to cry; in fact, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to cry. So be brave today and let it all out.

With love, 

S.A.