Dacher Keltner

And because it evokes

this feeling, like you said, of tearing up and it's almost like you're hearing a phenomenal piece of music.

Humans seem beautiful.

They seem transcendent, right?

They're not part of the mundane world anymore.

So it has this beauty quality to it that we've been interested in for a long time.

Yeah, or the gospel concert at Oprah's.

I mean, the science is a great place to begin.

People know nature is awesome, from oceans to clouds, to redwood trees, to flowers, to spring, to the sounds of birds.

And the science is astonishing, which is that we're now learning that we are wired

to be inspired and moved by nature.

You know, if I hear running water, it activates parts of my heart, right, that calm me down.

If I hear birdsong, parts of the brain light up that feel rewarding.

If I smell certain scents, like the trees around here, that activates specific chemical processes in your brain that make you feel part of something larger, the ecosystem.

And that took us 10 years to figure out and you just put it in one sentence.

So thanks a lot, but you know, it, yeah, time and time again, we started to realize that moments of all in nature, moral beauty, music, et cetera, that nagging voice of the ego quiets down your to-do list and your sense of status and what it just quiets down.

In fact, the brain regions of the ego quiet down.

And importantly, what you said, which is you become more aware of how you're connected to larger things than you.

a musical tradition, gospel music, a social cause, the environment around you, the gardens.

That's really what's going on.