Winter musings from the Nordic countryside.
My day is made up of repeated sequences—teeth brushing sounds, the warmth of the coffee cup filling my palms, eating meals, the quiet rhythm of my footsteps on wooden floors. Here I am going through the same routines. Especially here, in a small farm house in the countryside in the Nordics, where one day often melts into the next.
The nipping smells of frosty air and burning firewood, and the wind humming through the trees, sometimes gentle, sometimes rattling the windows. Outside, the world is painted in muted shades of grey—the sky a heavy, low-hanging blanket, the fields dusted with frost. Some mornings, the fir trees stand draped in fresh snow, their branches bending under the weight; other days, they stand naked and wind-blown, dark silhouettes against the dull horizon.
Occasionally, a streak of sunlight cracks through the clouds,. The chill bites at my skin when I step outside to the sun and the crunch of frozen ground beneath my boots is the only sound in the stillness.
Last two weeks in this mundane silence, it has become easy to fall into the belief that this is all there is—an endless cycle of daily patterns in a muted landscape, with brief moments of relief from a sun beam or a coffee break.
But this is where the mind can become rigid, narrowing its view, seeing only what is familiar. Often, mental struggles come from this rigidity, from the feeling of being stuck in the same patterns. forgetting that the world is wide. They say travel broadens horizons, and maybe that’s true. Maybe stepping onto unfamiliar streets, breathing in the scent of unknown spices, or hearing a foreign language swirl around you is one way to break the dullness. Maybe it’s a way to remind ourselves that life holds more than just repetition.
But even travelers can fall into a trap. Many drift from place to place, ticking off sights on their bucket lists, snapping photos of Nepali mountains through the screen of smartphones. The cool, crisp air and the scent of pine trees become background noise to the buzzing screen, the excitement of the moment diluted by the thought of the next destination, the next train ticket, the next meal. Even in the midst of adventure, the mind races ahead, distracted by what’s coming next.
Later, you scroll through the photos to remember the experience—the vibrant colors of the mountains, the golden temples, the busy streets—so you can recount it at dinner parties back home. Being a “dinner party traveler” might give the fleeting dopamine rush of validation, making one feel like a seasoned wanderer, but probably only as long as the audience is asking for travel tips.
Needless to say that this kind of travel doesn’t broaden our horizons. It won’t make your mind as vast as the sky, or as bouncy and free as jelly. Nothing sticks to a jelly —not crises, nor fleeting thoughts or negative emotions.
How to be a traveler. then?
The essence of being a traveler is to experience places and situations with the curiosity of a child—to be awed by the tropical beaches of Taiwan, feeling the warmth of the sand under your feet and the salty wind on your face. When sitting on the Moon Bay in Tainan you might hold your breath in an intens way as the pink hues of the sunset glow, casting golden highlight into the sky. You might feel the evening air creeping in, but you don’t want to blink, knowing that this will soon slip away. It’s as if you deeply understand that this moment will never return. It’s like embracing it with a sense of wonder, as if visiting Earth for the first time, fully aware that your time is fleeting.
It might now be clear, that this type of thinking can transform everyday life and keep winter melancholy at bay.
It might be that traveling to new places makes it a lot easier to practice this sense of appreciation, but it might not be necessary. If you might apply the same childlike wonder to the familiar: like noticing the green fir trees subtle rustling and the shades of grey in the winter sky, to taste every sip of the routine morning coffee as if it was some alien coal drink.
By engaging all of yourself in the mundane, life itself becomes an adventure—no train ticket required. So maybe, just maybe, the real shift isn’t in the movement itself—but in how we see.