Staring out a window. Without agenda. Without demand. That’s a great day.

Instead of the frivolous grind, checking off to-dos, an imaginary stamp of accomplishment. Maybe we could admit this to ourselves and each other.

Plato suggested a metaphor for the mind: our ideas are like birds fluttering around in the aviary of our brains. But in order for the birds to settle, Plato understood that we need periods of purpose-free calm.

Staring out the window is an exercise in discovering the contents of our own minds. It is easy to imagine we know what we think, what we feel, and what’s going on in our heads. But we rarely do. Its potential lies untapped, unexplored, and unused. Until we give it a moment of pause and freedom to gaze.

Stargazing. What a gift. The large-scale abyss brings a sublime realization that we are merely a tiny piece of this unworldly galaxy. Nature sends us humbling messages every day. We are not important. The incidents in our lives are not terribly important.

This sensation can be a source of immeasurable solace and calm. Next to a mighty canyon, vast sky, and unrelenting ocean, the celebrity and CEO are powerless. These local identities and accolades are self-proclaimed checkboxes. Not too impressive among the centuries of change among a desert. Today and tomorrow are essentially the same for us.

Your existence is a small, temporary thing. You will die and it will be as if you had never been. The sublime gifts of nature do not humble us by exalting others, but rather it gives us a sense of the lesser value of all humanity when compared to the laws of nature.

Riding a boat through Doubtful Sound and the Milford Fiordland, there’s an awe-inspiring sense of gratitude that surges through the body. An honor to see this beauty, and a reminder that these lands need not human intervention. The ecosystems function on their own. The trees fall, the landslides endure, the waterfalls build, and currents continue. To witness it is a privilege.

In Evolution Valley, we sat for 6 hours. Mesmerized by the tangible change in time. Watching the sunset to purple, the flies rise from the water, the birds swoop down for dinner, and the frog chirps echo as the day became night. The cycle was in slow motion, uninterrupted. The show shocks us from our selfish human core.

This world is big. The forces of nature are powerful. And we are only a gaze away from humbling liberation.