Stone’s Throw: How Much Can Nature Ignite Creativity? I’m About to Find Out

By Adam Stone

One cool Friday night in March, over pasta and red wine at Locali in Mount Kisco, my wife Alyson and I swapped stories with our newish friends, Warren Berger and Laura E. Kelly, a husband-and-wife publishing duo. 

Between talk of books, local journalism, and life in the area, Berger floated an offer I ultimately couldn’t refuse: become one of the guinea pigs for his next book.

The best-selling author of A More Beautiful Question is now working on Find Your Burren, exploring how immersing yourself in nature and then retreating to what he calls a “cave”—really any private workspace—can unleash new levels of creativity. 

Berger calls it the “Outside In” method, and as part of research for his upcoming book, he’s enlisting volunteers to test it.

A couple weeks ago I heard from Berger, and told him I was committing to his book research cause. I’ll soon unplug for five hours—two outdoors, three indoors—hoping my mind generates ideas I wouldn’t produce just staring at a screen. While in nature, I’ll ruminate on a specific creative project.

Publishing this today, on Labor Day, feels fitting. The holiday is meant to honor work, but it also reminds us to step back and recharge. I’m sharing my participation not just to highlight a personal experiment, but to pay forward the opportunity Berger gave me—in the hope that we’ll all get outside, unplug, and see how nature can spark our creativity—and engage more thoughtfully in our communities.

‘Science Shows’

The March dinner where he mentioned the research invitation came at a major moment for me. Just a little over a month earlier, we had ended our print editions after more than 17 years of the ink-stained grind. Suddenly, I was at a creative crossroads: experimenting with podcasts and figuring out how The Examiner News could continue to serve the community with only a fraction of past revenue and no full-time staff.

While much has been lost post-print, I’m deeply proud of the digital newsmagazine style journalism we’ve published over the past seven months: spotlighting issues of transparency in area schools, reporting on ICE activity, covering cultural flashpoints, human-interest stories, chronicling local legal disputes, sharing powerful audio interviews, incisive commentary, and much more. We’re finding our footing, and I hope our best work still lies ahead.

And here’s the related beauty part: I suspect my upcoming time in nature for Berger’s research can help take our work to the next level.

Shortly after our March dinner, I asked Berger, a longtime New York Times and Wired contributor, why we should all find our own Burren—a mystical region in Ireland known for its rugged limestone pavements and wildflowers, celebrated as a place that has inspired poets like Seamus Heaney and ignited creativity in countless others.

“We need to find that special place—for me it was the Burren in Ireland as well as a couple of parks closer to home—where we can become immersed in a beautiful natural setting and just relax, walk, and breathe it all in for a couple of hours,” the Mount Kisco resident replied, also noting that “science shows that doing this can also enable our minds to think more clearly and creatively.”

A 2014 Stanford study, for instance, found walking can boost creative output by about 60 percent while a 2022 paper in Frontiers in Psychiatry concluded that exposure to natural settings improves problem-solving skills.

History is filled with corroborating stories: Beethoven carried paper on countryside rambles to capture musical flashes; writers like Thoreau sought clarity during quiet reflection in the woods; even the often barefoot Steve Jobs took long walks in nature to birth ideas that changed the world.

Gameplan 

As I plan my Outside In day, I’m still deciding which project to focus on during the five-hour experiment, where to spend time in nature, and what local cave to hole up in. (I’m leaning toward Westmoreland Sanctuary, the nonprofit preserve spanning Mount Kisco, Bedford, and Armonk, with 8.5 miles of trails, followed by a quiet session at a local library).

One possibility is to spend time in nature thinking about how I want to manage my time differently this fall, so I can do more reporting and writing—and to write a related column on a local meditation expert I’ve been meaning to spotlight since winter.

But it’s important to stress that Berger’s project isn’t just for writers or artists. It’s safe to say that tapping deeper into your creativity (and your intuition) can help you more fluidly achieve almost anything—from boosting your business and improving athletic performance to, most importantly, strengthening relationships.

“For non-artists, you may want to tackle work-related projects or issues—how to bring a new approach or fresh idea into your work in general or to a particular project,” Berger notes on a webpage with experiment instructions. “It may be a great time to focus in on an entrepreneurial startup idea that you’ve thought about in the past.”

‘Bring Your Ideas to Life’

By the time I report back on my experience for Berger, we’ll see whether the Outside In experiment stimulates new ideas—or just leaves me with muddy shoes and a mediocre page of copy.

But I’m beyond optimistic it will produce something that wouldn’t otherwise have emerged. We all know, deep in our bones, that leaving our air-conditioned, screen-filled cocoons for the outdoors can work wonders for creativity.

Either way, the exercise seems like a useful way for anyone to tackle challenges, whether professional or personal, including how to best engage in local life, as new controversies roil our communities regularly in today’s especially fractured world. 

As for me, I was pleased to learn a couple weeks ago that all of Berger’s lab rats will be acknowledged in Find Your Burren. But the true reward, of course, holds far more long-term value.

“The real payoff,” Berger told me in an email, “may be a positive change in the way you tap into your creativity and bring your ideas to life.”

We could all use more of that. 

Soon, I hope to share the local journalism that my walk through our little slice of Earth will help unlock.

Keep it here.