this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

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If you want to live close to nature, don't move to the countryside. Move to water bodies or mountains instead. (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 9 hours ago by gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Most countrysides look somewhat like that. At least the one i was forced to grow up in. Sure, there are lots of plants but nevertheless the land is ecologically dead because there's only a few species (mostly 3 different subspecies of corn). Sure there are some trees but i think the trees feel as lonely as i did when i lived there.

If you want to live in nature, go to the mountains or some place that has large bodies of water nearby (lakes, rivers, ocean). That's where the actual life is.

It's because of a mixture of landscape reasons. Large flat areas are attractive to farming, so that's what's being done. On the other side, mountains are unattractive for that because the big machines can't drive over uneven soil. Similarly, large waters host a ton of biodiversity because water is the origin of all life, and you can really feel that. Just give it a try.

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[–] immutable@lemmy.zip 8 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

My spouse and I bought 5 acres in rural Ohio. About 3 of it is wooded.

We are actively converting the land back to wild prairie. We have tons of wildlife on our land, deer, rabbits, groundhogs, birds of all sorts, stink bugs (you take the bad with the good), and all sorts of creepy crawlers.

We actively have worked though to rehabilitate the land. Started by seeding clover along with the grass to help with nitrogen and then are working with some people from our local library that help restore land back to its natural biodiversity. Not there yet but making progress after a year and a half.

We let the leaves fall undisturbed to make breeding ground for insects and last summer as the days got long and hot we were treated with a brilliant light show of fireflies in the forest every night for a month or two.

If you want to live in nature you can go to where it is or you can restore where you are.

[–] iceberg314@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 hours ago

But if you do get a decent amount of land in the country side like this, you can do alot of landscaping and turn it into something pretty.

I grew up surrounded by farmland, but we had wide variety of trees, grasses, and plants on our particular plot of land

[–] mech@feddit.org 13 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Most countrysides look somewhat like that.

Ah, my daily dose of US defaultism.
This is what the countryside around here looks like.

Also:

Just give it a try.

is an incredibly privileged thing to say.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

i grew up in a small austrian town but it didn't really have much nature besides 3 trees standing next to our house (that i used to climb btw, was fun).

now i live in vienna and i spent like 10 hours last week exploring the river bank of a small river around here, it's beautiful. so much better. i realize that this is because of many factors, but one of them is that a flat empty piece of land can just be so absolutely mind-bogglingly boring and generic that nobody even bothers to try to make something beautiful out of it. at least that's my take.

Oh and vienna was built between the mountains on one side and a large river on the other side, and i am starting to think that that does make a difference. I've yet to put it to proper words, though.

[–] KC_Royalz@lemmy.world 14 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Have you priced places near bodies of water and mountains? Out of my paygrade

[–] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Bodies of water? Sure, that land can be pricy, although not in every case.

Mountains? Nah those areas are usually pretty inexpensive, at least in the US. Appalachia being a prime example.

[–] KC_Royalz@lemmy.world 6 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

That's because it's Appalachia. Try Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Montana

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 hours ago

Or Cascades. My house was north of half a mill :(

[–] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It's mainly because of the ski resorts afaik. But yes, that's fair.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 6 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

No, it is because building in remote areas is expensive.

[–] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

If you're building a brand new house you're already outside the realm of affordability. In general, rural areas have an excess of housing stock due to the strong trend of urbanization over the past century.

Also, the fact that building in remote areas is expensive doesn't contradict the fact that ski resorts drive massive real estate inflation in the surrounding areas.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Ski resorts count for an extremely small portion of mountainous areas. It is like saying housing in cities is expensive because of golf courses.

[–] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Agree to disagree. Shutdown all the ski resorts in Colorado and see what happens to property values over the next 20 years. The proportion of land might be small, but the population and monetary influx is massive.

In order for housing to be expensive, people need to have the money to pay for it. If there's no high paying jobs within hundreds of miles, and there's no tourism money, the demand simply won't be there and prices will fall. Again, look at the Appalachians and the Adirondacks for example. Ever since the advent of air travel, they've been steadily depopulated and economically depressed, as people from the cities prefer to vacation in more remote locations, such as the Rockies.

I should also acknowledge that a lot of land out west is owned by the government or other major groups, and that probably also plays a role. I'm not as familiar with the real estate market of Wyoming as I'd like to be. But I can't help but dispute your assertion that prices are high because building is expensive. Seems like a tautology somehow.

[–] Addv4@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

In all fairness, there is a reason that Appalachian land is cheap, and that is that setting aside your neighbors, the geographic disadvantages are pretty bad for farming and development.

[–] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Absolutely. That's true for mountainous regions in general. Lack of navigable rivers, difficulty of transportation, lack of farmable land, harsh climate, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_people

In the modern world we have developed technology to mitigate these issues so you have some exceptions, like the Alps and the Rockies to some extent. But historically, wealth was always concentrated in the coastal and agriculturally productive regions.

[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yep I realized there is a mountainous county in my state with only ~3,000 people, that is appealing to me. But I doubt there is internet and you are probably 1+ hours from a grocery store.

[–] Addv4@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

Nah, you'll probably have Internet, and the closest grocery store in a lot of places is like 20-30 min away. But mobile towers are pretty spotty, the closest grocery is going to be expensive (if it isn't something like a dollar general, which is also pricey), and the roads will be outright dangerous in some areas. There is a reason land in west Virginia and rural mountains of NC, VA, AND TN can be soo cheap.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago

Dead cheap where I live. Nobody wants to have to drive 30 km of hairpins to get to the nearest supermarket.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Yeah me too, unless want to live out of a van.

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 hours ago

I'm lucky to live in a farming town in the Pacific Northwest. We've got farmland, forest and coast. You'll pay for it though, shit is expensive here.

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Booooooo