Have you noticed that an anxiety tends to creep in whenever your surroundings get perfectly quiet?
For a long time, I told myself that peace was supposed to be like a quiet day at home. But often I find my center of gravity when everything around me is a blur—whether I’m staring out the window of a train, driving with the radio on, or just walking on a local park trail.
I was reading Pam Houston’s memoir Deep Creek recently, and she absolutely nailed this exact feeling:
“Motion improves any day for me—the farther the faster the better—on a plane, a boat, a dogsled, a car, the back of a horse, a bus, a pair of skis, in a cabbage wagon, hoofing it down a trail in my well-worn hiking boots. Stillness, on the other hand, makes me very nervous.”
I love how beautifully democratic her list is. It really doesn’t matter if it’s a jet plane or a literal cabbage wagon. The vehicle isn’t the point; the momentum is what heals us.
For me, motion acts as a physical counterweight to the heavy, looping thoughts in my head. When I’m moving and taking in a changing world around me, my mind gets permission to unclench. The scenery changes, the wind hits my face, and whatever I’m stressed about is forced to keep up or get left behind in the dust.
But it’s the second half of her quote that really gets me—the idea that stillness makes us nervous.
Why does just stopping feel so threatening? I think it’s because when we stop moving, the dust settles, and whatever we’ve been outrunning finally taps us on the shoulder. Stillness strips away my favorite distractions. It forces me to actually sit with my uncertainties and unanswerable questions. We live in a world that tells us stillness equals peace, so it can be hard to admit that the quiet actually makes me more anxious.
Maybe the goal isn’t to force ourselves into a static version of peace that just doesn’t fit. If motion makes a day better, I think we should just honor that. I run, drive, and walk not to escape myself, but to process my life at a speed that actually makes sense to my brain. There is a beautiful quietude to be found in the center of movement—a peace that shows up when I’m finally going fast enough.
““The demons hate it when you get out of bed. Demons hate fresh air.”” (Austin Kleon, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad)