Soft Fascination
In the LA Times last year, environmental neuroscientist Marc Berman (his 2025 book is called Nature and the Mind) had a lovely explanation of why nature is ‘softly fascinating’:
“You don’t often hear people say, ‘Oh, I can’t look at that beautiful waterfall anymore. It’s just too interesting to look at. I’m too tired’ … When you look at that waterfall, it doesn’t capture all of your attentional resources. You can still mind-wander and think about other things while you’re looking at the waterfall. If you’re in Times Square, it’s also super interesting. It captures a lot of your attentional focus, but it does so in an all-consuming way. The kind of stimulation that gives you this restful, restorative experience has to be softly fascinating and not harshly fascinating.”
I love this distinction between harsh and soft fascination. What if we integrated more soft moments into our modern and harshly scheduled days? For some of us, even our breaks (meant to be relaxing!) have a sharp edge.
We close our laptops…but then scroll on our phones. Or, we go for a walk…but listen to a podcast as well. In my case, a morning jaunt with the dog turns into an opportunity to optimize for steps (and the best coffee) rather than calming surroundings. Just chill out, Lady!