Friday Care Package | Politicized Care in the Wisdom Economy
+Day 30 The Power of Small Things
Dear Substack Community: I have come to Friday, again, wondering what to write. I spoke to the American Medical Student Association on Monday for Trans Day of Visibility. I invited them to slow down and practice presence in their becoming future doctors. This got me to thinking about how care is always political.
I’ve been in a program for Applied Narrative Intelligence as part of my continuing education and remaining nimble in the gig economy. I’m learning so much about how the stories that shape us show up in really material ways, too, and that our social practices are part of an economy of harm. It’s a lot of learning, and it is about developing a practice; it’s always about a practice.
Each Friday, I write on care. I have decided to put care into everything I do, including my writing. Care is not a monolith; it does not look the same. I am a Transmasc Latino, so care looks like me cooking for my community and feeding people. It also looks like me not remaining silent about the harm that continues to be perpetuated against the underside of history. I sit down with my cup of mate and write. Today, I invite you back into the framework that I started several weeks ago and explore the ethics of care and the need to speak the painful truth. So, as we normally do, I invite you to breathe, and then consider what I have written.
Day 30: The Power of Small Things
Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, a hidden treasure, a bit of yeast. The world seeks spectacle, but God works in the small and slow. Where might God be working in unseen ways in your life?
Friday Care Package | Politicized Care in the Wisdom Economy
Beloveds,
In the wisdom economy, care is not a transaction.
It’s not something we give when we have time, or when it’s convenient.
Care is presence.
Care is noticing.
Care is making space for what the world tries to make invisible.
And so we say it clearly:
Care is political.
To care—truly care—in a society built on speed, disposability, and domination is to resist.
It is to say: your body matters, your rest matters, your tears are not an inconvenience.
It is to refuse the logic of empire that demands productivity over presence, and power over tenderness.
Care is how we stitch ourselves back together when the world tries to rip us apart.
This week, I’ve been sitting with how radical care is for queer and trans bodies, for racialized bodies, for disabled and chronically ill bodies, for every body that isn’t valued by systems of extraction.
To care for ourselves and for one another in this world is a kind of fugitivity—an escape from the economy of harm, and a return to the underground networks of collective aliveness.
In the wisdom economy, care is not separate from justice.
It is justice in motion.
It’s the hand on the shoulder, the meal at the door, the text that says “I see you.”
It’s canceling the meeting and taking the nap.
It’s choosing softness when the world demands steel.
And it is not easy.
It takes work to stay tender.
It takes intention to listen.
It takes courage to say, “I will not leave you in your loneliness.”
Especially when you, too, are tired.
Especially when the world keeps breaking your heart.
But this is what we know deep in our bones:
Care changes things.
It re-maps what’s possible.
It interrupts the myth that we must do it all alone.
Care Plan
So here’s your invitation this weekend:
✨ Reach out to someone you’ve been meaning to check on.
✨ Make something beautiful and completely unnecessary.
✨ Say “no” to something that doesn’t honor your joy.
✨ Let yourself be cared for.
Let us build the world not only through protest and policy—though those are holy, too—but through every gesture of politicized tenderness.
This is how we survive.
This is how we love.
This is how we remember who we are.
You are held.
You are not alone.
And your care matters.
In fierce hope,
Roberto Che Espinoza+