Are you reading this inside? Is the weather reasonably clement where you are? Do you have a comfortable and safe place to sit outside? If you answered “yes” to these questions, then may I suggest, before you read any further, that you take this magazine (or whatever device you’re reading this on) outside? Even just 20 minutes of time spent outside can have a positive effect on your mood, your heart rate and your day. If you are able-bodied and haven’t been out for a walk yet, consider taking one. Walking does more than lubricate the joints: It propels us out into the world.
We are a species that evolved out of doors, long before there even were doors. We are genetically programmed to find delight in a horizon line, in the appearance of other species. We are known to stop whatever we’re doing to watch a sunset, or a moonrise. We do these things not because they generate a profit, not because they help us earn favor with those who hold power in our society. We do them because they bring us joy. Because they bring us peace. Because being indoors all the time is not healthy for us, neither mentally nor physically.
Outdoors, the sun gives life. It grows tomatoes and basil and sugar snap peas. Without it, there’d be no living things on Earth. This simple fact is worthy of our awe and adulation. And yet, the sun also gives heat — these days, a lot more heat than some of us, in some places, can handle at times. And the number of extreme heat days in a year is increasing. In Phoenix, extreme heat has spawned a loneliness epidemic among Black residents, as Adam Mahoney reports in his feature story “The Heat Between Us.” People stay inside in order to stay cool, but this breeds isolation, especially among those who live by themselves.
The solution to this loneliness epidemic, it turns out, is also good for us physically: getting out on the land, among the trees and away from the asphalt. Less asphalt and more trees will also help cool the planet, so we can continue to enjoy sunsets and grow tomatoes. How wonderful that the stars have aligned on this: that the very thing that is better for the planet is also better for its inhabitants. Let us join together and heed the stars and the sun and embrace our place in the natural order as part of something, rather than being part of its undoing.
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