Our world needs us in it.

It is striking that, at a time when human impact seems predisposed towards destruction, we find ourselves living further and further inside of our own creations, and further and further away from the wild world in which we truly live.

Earlier this month, REI published a report called “The Path Ahead.”

I came across this report on the OutdoorEd.com resources webpage—you can find the article in pdf form here. It presents startling statistics gathered from several different books, studies, and surveys, and aims to present two potential futures for humanity: an indoor future, and an outdoor one, to put it bluntly. Their hashtag to summon people to the cause is #OptOutside.

While there’s plenty here to wonder about, at the very least it got me thinking about the turn of the year, and what is in motion out in the world, and what it might be like if we each could be curious a bit more about the place where we live—Where is north from where you’re sitting? Where is the nearest running water? What is the name of the plant outside your front door? How would 2019 look if people opted to wonder about what’s out there?