One day my wife said to me, while we were watching our chickens scratch around, "Watching chickens is relaxing...like watching a fire." That got me thinking -- thinking about why that seemed to be true.  Over time it seemed to me that there were other things that, when experienced directly, brought a similar response of relaxation, engagement, satisfaction...and happiness.  I started thinking about these as "real things."

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I wondered how much I was optimizing for real things in my life, and didn't really like what I discovered.  So I started looking for ways to intentionally build more real things into my life, convinced that by doing so I could increase my overall happiness.  This blog makes the case for real things, and describes some of the ways I've found to bring more real things into every day.