Nature

I've always felt there's a lot to learn from experiencing nature.

Even before I started traveling seriously, I was drawn to the Tao Te Ching and the way it looks to nature for wisdom: water, valleys, softness, patience, non-force.

As someone in tech, I can't help but look at nature and marvel at its ingenuity. Birds fly with hollow bones. Eagles can see prey from miles away. Dogs can smell things we can barely imagine. We use technology to build incredible tools, but nature has been solving impossible engineering problems for millions of years, often in forms smaller, lighter, and more elegant than anything we can make.

Nature also teaches perspective. A glacier or a mountain can feel completely still. Immovable. Rock solid. And yet, under a longer lens of time, everything is changing. Glaciers are ice rivers. Rocks get polished. Deserts shift. Coastlines erode. Stars we see in the night sky may already be gone by the time their light reaches us.

Nature also teaches science. The northern lights, waves, tides, and a blue sky can seem simple on the surface, but they're phenomena of deep complexity.

In nature, I find peace, purpose, curiosity, and perspective.