Get Out(side)

Tl;DR

Get outside and experience something tangible. You never know what will inspire you or what you might learn, and getting off of screens will probably shake loose some ideas and improve your online work product. We all know this, but it can be hard to remember when we get into production mode.

Weekly, I spend a fair amount of my personal time learning “work related stuff” by reading articles, listening to podcasts, and engaging in virtual meetings/discussions; but nothing can compare to actually getting out into the world.

My family periodically spends Sunday mornings at a local trail, working with an organization committed to restoring native habitats. On a recent Sunday, as I was clearing cape ivy and getting my fingers stuck over and over by blackberry brambles, I started thinking about what’s real, how we learn new things, and how we decide WHAT WE CAN TRUST. And trust me, I knew that the thorns lodging in my fingertips were REAL, not AI hallucinations.?

The head volunteer taught me and my teen how important fennel plants are for the migrating butterflies (I had no idea) and we liberated a huge fennel plant from the encroaching blackberry vines, knowing that it’ll now be more accessible to the butterflies that lay their eggs there. I could have read about this, but experiencing this learning was so much more valuable. And likely I never would have researched this topic, but it ended up being a great conversation starter between me and my teen that took us from local landscape to broader ecological topics. And, of course, we now notice fennel plants when we are out for walks.

A few weeks back, my family went to a nature lecture about bats, followed by viewing a few hundred thousand bats emerging from under an overpass at dusk to head out on their dinner run. (If you are in Northern California, I highly recommend this experience- see here.) Not only was the bat emergence incredible to see, we learned a ton about bats and developed a new appreciation for the role that they play in agriculture- natural pest control at its best. And we learned that California recently named the pallid bat as its state bat. Who knew? That family experience has given us hours of conversation and pushed my own thoughts about interconnectedness, something that absolutely applies to my professional work.

What’s my message here? Maybe instead of taking that next AI course (or whatever your version of that is), get out into nature- feel the textures of the plants, smell the smells, and experience the incredible ways that nature comes through and self heals with time. See first hand the fragility of our ecosystem. Maybe that refuels you for more laptop time or inspires you to try something new or allows you to connect with others offline or is simply time to relax. I am grateful for learning things that connect me to my family, my neighbors, and my environment. And I always seem to find ways to tie the spirit of those learnings to my professional endeavors. Or at least make it fodder for a post.