Outside

I decided I would be outside from now on.

It was spring and the weather was beautiful. I opened a window to feel its cool breath. Suddenly it struck me that everything I want to do today I can do outside. Why let spring in when I can let myself out?

Today our lives are more portable than ever. Long-lasting batteries and wireless connections have cut the cords that tethered us to walls. I resolved to embrace this freedom and make the outside my primary space. The inside would become a retreat, a secondary space. Hadn't it used to be like this anyway?

Inside-primary, outside-secondary

There are good reasons to be indoors. We enjoy our privacy. The weather is frequently not beautiful. For many, outside is the sidewalk of a busy street in a megalopolis. For others it may simply not be safe. Being outside-primary does not mean enduring these things simply to not be inside.

Being "outside-primary" means seeing the outdoors as our natural, default state—a place we belong to and return to instinctively. In this orientation "inside" exists only as a secondary space, where we retreat when circumstances demand it: to sleep, to shelter, or to recharge.

Being "inside-primary" flips this perception. Instead, the indoors is home base—the place we are meant to be. The outdoors becomes an occasional destination, a space we venture into only when necessary or for specific purposes. I claim that most people today are inside-primary, myself included.

It is possible to spend most of your time outside and still hold an inside-primary perspective. Historically, a significant portion of labor in every known civilization has occurred outdoors—particularly in farming, construction, and other foundational tasks. These activities are essential to sustaining the existence of the civilization. As technology advances the proportion of outdoor labor decreases, though its importance has not.

In developed societies being part of the outdoors working class carries somewhat negative connotations with it. Labor performed outside is perceived as less prestigious or secondary to work that takes place indoors.

Paradoxically, those who work outdoors may hold an even stronger inside-primary mindset. This is because they have less agency over their exposure to the elements. It is this lack of autonomy, rather than the environment itself, that reinforces their perception of inside as the default and outside as something that must be endured.

It would be simplistic to take these two modalities as firmly binary states. They exist along a continuum. Even in the most urban locations there are those who have chosen to live outside. Diogenes, for example, is said to have rejected shelter and opted instead to live in a clay jar in the middle of Athens. In the other direction are urbanites who regularly seek the wilderness for sport, leisure, or adventure. During such trips it is possible to shift from an inside-primary orientation to outside-primary, even if only temporarily.

The origins of "inside" and "outside"

This continuum between inside-primary and outside-primary perspectives is rooted in the long arc of human history. For tens of thousands of years the business of being human took place outside. The world as our ancestors knew it was infinite and shelter served only as a temporary respite. Nature was not a separate zone at the edge of the human world to escape to. It was the market, the pharmacy, and the temple. There was no way to escape daily life because there was nothing else to escape to.

The very concept of "inside" as we know it is a relatively recent development. It is shaped by humanity's growing attempts to control the natural world. Modern anthropology asserts that the lives of prehistorical humans were far more complex than previously thought.^[1] The story of our ancestors is not a linear narrative that begins with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and arrives at an "Agricultural Revolution" that enables civilization. There is evidence that early societies understood they could develop an agrarian lifestyle but chose not to.

The indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest Coast are one example of a group that thrived without adopting an agrarian lifestyle. They supported large populations with complex cultural traditions where ceremonial feasts called patlachs were a cultural cornerstone for social and economic exchange. Yet their ability to celebrate with abundance did not depend on an agrarian lifestyle. These peoples are now known to have kept forest gardens. This clearly indicates that they understood how agriculture could work and never adopted it fully in spite of it. Even today tribes in Africa like the Hadza and Maasai resist the adoption of modern lifestyles while being acutely aware of their existence.

Clearly agriculture has seen widespread adoption across the time and space of human history. Farming as we understand it today requires creating spaces that are resilient to the fickleness of natural cycles. This creates a more predictable and stable food supply. To achieve this, humans had to establish spaces within their control—spaces that were "inside." By definition, creating such controlled spaces also defined what was "outside," marking the beginning of a fundamental divide between humanity and the natural world.

This inside-outside divide becomes more than conceptual when permanent shelter is established within controlled spaces. What began as a way to manage natural cycles has evolved into a growing separation from the natural world. The distance widens further when barriers are erected to encircle clusters of shelters, transforming them into towns, cities, and eventually metropolises. Today, the farthest "inside" we can go might mean standing atop a skyscraper, so removed from natural zones that they are no longer visible even on the clearest days.

Does this mean "inside" becoming primary is a byproduct of civilization? Probably not. While the structures and barriers of civilization have widened the divide, we cannot truly know how prehistoric humans perceived their environments. Our modern conceptual frameworks may not even apply to their lifestyles. Even within the wilderness it is possible to feel "inside" a territory you understand and control. And beyond that there will always exist an "outside"—a world unexplored, unknown, and untouched by your experience.

What is "inside", then?

It is the space in which we feel the most safe and in control.

The narrative that begins with bands of foragers and arrives at today is a story of humanity exerting ever-increasing control over our environment. The gradient—from wilderness, agricultural zones, suburban labyrinths, and finally the densest urban zones—can be seen as a kind of defense in depth designed to secure and stabilize our immediate surroundings. Yet this appetite for control has only grown. Today, we take particular pleasure in using technology to achieve precise, automatic control of even the smallest details, like the lighting and temperature in our homes.

This unyielding drive for control, however, seems to come at a significant cost. By perfecting our "inside" spaces we risk distancing ourselves further from natural world we now refer to as the "outside." What could we be losing in the process?

That said, there is no denying that a high level of control brings us significant comfort. And yet, deep down, many of us feel a yearning to give it all up and return to the outside. Can you truly feel free while inside?

I spent the entire day blissfully enjoying the outside, convinced that every day following it I would do the same. This was my life now.

The sun began to set. I heard the high-pitch whine of a mosquito. A few seconds later I felt the itch of a bite.

I went inside.