There is a noticeable difference between being inside all day and stepping outside for even a short while. I don’t mean exercise, or productivity, or fresh air in the practical sense. I mean something subtler—something that settles in the body before it ever reaches the mind.
Outside, the noise thins.
Thoughts that felt urgent indoors loosen their grip. Time stretches instead of pressing. The constant internal commentary quiets just enough for something else to surface—not words exactly, but a knowing. A sense of being placed back into something larger than yourself.
I don’t think this is accidental.
Indoors, we exist in straight lines, artificial light, controlled temperature, endless signals. Outside, nothing is trying to optimize us. Trees don’t care if we’re efficient. The sky doesn’t demand output. The ground doesn’t require explanation.
And because of that, something in us exhales.
I’ve noticed that when I spend time outside—really outside, not rushing through—it becomes easier to listen. Not to anyone else. To myself. To the internal compass that feels dulled when surrounded by walls and screens.
This is where ideas arrive. Where clarity returns. Where I remember what feels right and what feels wrong without needing to justify it.
Lately, I’ve also noticed something else. Animals behave differently when I’m still. When I’m present rather than passing through. Deer have appeared more than once—not startled, not rushing away. Just… aware. Watching, the way you watch something that doesn’t feel like a threat.
I don’t know what that means, and I don’t need to. I only know that fear changes things. And the absence of fear does too.
Perhaps animals sense when we are aligned rather than noisy. Perhaps they respond to stillness the same way we do. Or perhaps it’s simply that when we slow down enough to notice the world, the world notices us back.
Nature doesn’t speak in declarations. It doesn’t announce truths or demand belief. It invites attention. And when we give it that attention, something ancient responds.
I don’t believe we are separate from this. I think we’ve just forgotten how to be part of it.
Maybe that forgetting wasn’t intentional. Or maybe it was convenient. Either way, the remembering is quiet. It doesn’t happen indoors very often. It happens under open sky, on uneven ground, where nothing is trying to sell us an answer.
Outside, we don’t need to be told who we are.
We remember.
— a Veilkin