> ... and ever since I have had a completely different outlook on life that is, sadly, not quite compatible with modern life.

I hear you. For about two years I got to live in a rural area, on the sea side, 45 minutes drive from the closest highway. 5000 people villages was a 15 minutes drive.

Chopping wood to then heat the house, having animals pass in front of me while I'd be reading HN under the porch before going to bed.

Walking just for the sake of walking from the house to the sea and then back.

Heny Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Full quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2690-i-went-to-the-woods-be...

That and the quote about cities being about mystification.

(3 minutes elapsed)

Ah, found it (first read it for someone posted here on HN btw):

Thomas Merton's Raids On The Unspeakable: "I am alien to the noises of cities, of people, to the greed of machinery that does not sleep, the hum of power that eats up the night. Where rain, sunlight and darkness are contemned, I cannot sleep. I do not trust anything that has been fabricated to replace the climate of woods or prairies. I can have no confidence in places where the air is first fouled and then cleansed, where the water is first made deadly and then made safe with other poisons. There is nothing in the world of buildings that is not fabricated, and if a tree gets in among the apartment houses by mistake it is taught to grow chemically. It is given a precise reason for existing. They put a sign on it saying it is for health, beauty, perspective; that it is for peace, for prosperity; that it was planted by the mayor’s daughter. All of this is mystification. The city itself lives on its own myth. Instead of waking up and silently existing, the city people prefer a stubborn and fabricated dream; they do not care to be a part of the night, or to be merely of the world. They have constructed a world outside the world, against the world, a world of mechanical fictions which contemn nature and seek only to use it up, thus preventing it from renewing itself and man."

Thankfully I still go to that place where I used to live, several times a year. Sky is so clear I can many stars.

Once my kid shall turn 18, I plan to go back live there.

I don't think us humans were meant to be stacked in cities and high-rises like ants. It's just like communism: great theory but wrong species.

> I have to choose if I want to spend time with my family or going with the gym

Wife does her gym at home: proper stuff in gym gear. Mostly just simple exercises: no crazy gear besides a few weights. No driving to the gym so twice the time saved. No need to shower at the gym or seat all sweaty in the car.

She does 20 or 30 minutes each day.