"Why are you always outside?" is a really common question that people ask me on a weekly basis. It was something I never noticed about myself until I came to college, where not just friends but strangers ask me this as well. So after being asked a 4th-time last week, I really started to think about why I am outside all the time and investigated my own thoughts which served as my data.
Each time I was outside this week I wrote down small fragments of my thoughts to see if there was an underlying meaning joining them as a means to understand why I prefer the open world to four white walls enclosing me. Most people seem to find comfort in their dorms, rooms, houses etc., but personally I never feel as tranquil and whole in my setting unless I am outside experiencing it.
Here is some of the qualitative data, retrieved from my own mind each time I was sitting outside. While there were over 30 statements I collected, I am displaying the ones that I feel capture exactly what I was experiencing. (I made my absolute best effort to be impeccable with my words):
-I don't want to miss any aspect of the world.
-I see how nature changes and it causes me to ask questions and wonder.
-It's comforting to be aware of my position and space in time.
-Feeling the energy of the sun on my skin is one of the most humbling things I've ever experienced.
-If I'm inside all day I can't experience the world moving around me and I can't participate in the motion.
The main web that my thoughts weaved was one of engagement. Through nearly every statement I recorded there was a sort of desperation to connect with my environment. The main aspect of engagement that intrigued me was the idea that I wanted to monitor and experience change outside not just in movement but temporally, too.
Something I always did when I was a kid and still do was go to Upper Beach every day and take a picture of the same tree so I could see how the tree changed over time. It comforts me knowing that in a changing world we are all standing still in a way. It's important for me to note these changes but to also be able to go back to see how far something has grown. Essentially, I related to this tree a lot and we grew up together in the rawest of ways.
I connected this idea back to selective attention which has been a focus of my own personal studies in Neuroscience and in the lab I work in:
Selective attention is defined as the ability to ignore certain stimuli and concentrate on just one aspect of your environment. When I am outside or inside, there are multiple, if not infinite, stimuli occurring around me. But the most significant difference between these two conditions is when I selectively attend to something inside, it is stagnant and I become very bored. I feel I wasted the energy of my thought on something that is not changing-- for example, staring at my lamp for a half hour instead of doing my work. But when I am outside and my attention selects something to focus on other than the task at hand, I am focused on something much more fulfilling and experiencing a more productive "distraction" than if I were sitting inside. For example, watching the clouds make their slow, deliberate strides across the color-changing sky, experiencing the wind on my skin at different temperatures and pressures, or the changing texture of the ground beneath my feet. My mind is always moving and thinking and wanting to learn more, and being outside allows my mind the freedom to think about and explore the natural world, which I think is a much better use of my time even if I am distracted. These stimuli expand my capacity to perceive and understand the world around me, and to be a part of this incredible Earth I am forever thankful.
"Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.” -Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author.
