I wanted to move The Thinker to a place where he would be more visible. But my husband was right: There was no need for our little reclaimed statue to rise above it all. He was much better off staying nestled at nature’s feet.

I once asked my husband if he’d like to move The Thinker to a more conspicuous spot. Should we set him atop the stone wall, I wondered, so we could admire his deep thoughts up close? Or what about in the meadow, where he’d rise above the blooms and keep sage watch over the bumblebees?

“I like him where he is,” Will replied, and despite the lack of explanation, his answer made sense in a way I couldn’t yet name.

Neither of us knew how The Thinker had spent his life before taking his perch in a grove of sassafras trees that leads to our backyard. And theories still vary about the manner in which he was rescued from his ignoble beginnings. Will remembers finding him on our property 15 years ago, among the discarded golf balls and plastic toys and deteriorating plant containers left behind by the previous homeowners. I remember Will finding him in the dumpster at our last apartment.

Whatever his origin story, The Thinker now rests on the base of a long-gone broken birdbath, surveying the evolving landscape and, in my mind anyway, quietly pondering the larger meaning of habitat destruction and unchecked human existence.

He’s not an original, of course. But unlike his dozens of monumental counterparts gracing public spaces around the world, our little Thinker doesn’t tower above us. We put him on a pedestal, to be sure, but it stands less than two feet tall. Even among the small trees by our patio, he looks like a fallible being stopping to rest in a forest of giant sequoias.

Recently I tried to enter a similar state of peaceful contemplation, sitting in the front yard with my camera to capture the early-emerging mourning cloak butterfly who’d been basking near an elm tree for days. He wasn’t cooperating, flitting into view every 20 minutes or so but not nearby enough for his closeup. Whenever I followed his lead, he’d vanish over the roof, decamping into the backyard.

Eventually my mind wandered. What was the name again of that little tree a few feet away that I’d planted last year? How tall would it get? Did I put it in too much shade? And who could help me figure out how to chase butterflies? Would one of my photographer friends have any tips? What kind of lens should I use?

Somewhere in between Googling tree identification sites, texting my friends, and losing track of my original mission, I felt a tickle on my knee. I moved my head slightly to see what it was—just in time to watch the object of my affection flying off.

Though I never managed to capture more than the indistinguishable backside of the one who got away, he gave me something better than a photo op: a reminder that it’s all too easy to let our impatience and endless search for distraction overshadow the interesting treasures right in front of our noses—or on our knees or at our feet.

This mindless neglect of the natural world in favor of our machines is a well-documented cultural epidemic. It’s also a private struggle for many of us who sense in some primal way that the prevailing, cubicle-filled lifestyle of flashing screens, recycled air, piped-in white noise, and endless instant messaging was designed more for robots than for living beings. We are animals, too, after all, and in our quest to dominate the planet we’ve somehow forgotten that we are a part of that planet. We’ve lost our senses in more ways than one.

I’ve spent the past four months trying to gain some of those senses back. As my mind emerges from a corporate office-induced fog that was two decades in the making, the plants and animals I’ve missed over the long winter months have been emerging alongside me. So has a deeper understanding of what I need to do to help them. The ability to consider their needs more carefully—and to see the bluebird peeking out of her house and the garter snake moving through the grass and the bee entering the small hole of her nest—was always there, just as it is in all of us. But cultivating that ability to its deserved fullest is a process of unlearning the false imperatives of a modern world that stifles imagination.

I now understand why Will wanted to keep The Thinker in his dappled shade, nestled in the disturbed landscape we are slowly restoring for wildlife. Our stoic statue is more of an inspiration there among the trees than he would be if he were looking down at us from a lofty seat on high. When we ponder him pondering his surroundings, we see what he sees—the potential of the trees and the soil and the circling birds. His presence is a reminder that though we are just small specks on this planet, we are not helpless or alone. And that we have an obligation to ensure our fellow creatures never feel that way either.