The Tree in the Park

Yoko Ono wrote a letter to young artists that I keep coming back to. Not because it says anything technically new—most of it you’ve heard in some form—but because of how she frames the first shift: the moment you decide you’re an artist, the world stops being background noise and becomes material. Everything is interesting. Everything is yours to use. That’s not a small thing to offer someone at the start.

The part that stays with me is her take on audience. Don’t be upset about how few people see the work, she says—be upset if you’re not happy with the work itself. The work exists regardless. It keeps influencing the world whether anyone’s paying attention or not. And what you put into it comes back tenfold: If you give out something beautiful, you will get back 10 times more beauty in your life. Which sounds like mysticism but feels, in practice, like simple cause and effect. Make careless things, surround yourself with careless things. Make something you care about, and caring becomes easier.

She ends it like this: You are now like a tree in the park. Your existence is making the city breathe well. So relax and be yourself. New York, signed Yoko. I love that image—not the tortured genius, not the visionary, just a tree. Quietly doing its structural work in the background of other people’s lives. That’s not a small ambition either.