A short reflection on why Thanksgiving has always felt familiar to me, carrying the same deep ease we call keyif in Turkish. It follows the quiet currents that flow through food, connection, slowness, shared presence; a deeply relaxed, warm, stretched-joy state that opens a doorway into total well-being – the same currents at the heart of Yildiz Oceanic Well-Being.

And of course, there is the fun part: Thanksgiving and Turkish keyif connect through one shared word in English… turkey.
Though the country Turkey is now called Türkiye.

This piece emerged as a spontaneous reflection – a pause between projects and tides, before the next deep dive into dimensions of well-being. After seeing countless AI-generated posts online, Zelda has been reflecting, a lot, on a simple yet profound analogy: frozen food versus home-cooked meals – and what gets lost when convenience replaces connection.

Just as food is not only about calories for the body, creativity is not only about output or productivity.
Through this lens, she explores how AI can serve as a powerful tool for collaboration and reflection, but not as a replacement for the human element that infuses life with meaning, empathy, embodiment, and soul.

We’re opening a new writing series: Reflections – Letters from the Ocean. Here, Zelda shares moments from daily life - sometimes as I, sometimes as she, and sometimes with Amea - tracing how small experiences ripple into greater understanding.

This first piece of Reflections explores how pauses can become part of the progress – how pieces integrate quietly behind the scenes, without tension, when we step away, and how flow sometimes arrives softly after surrender.