Ian Somherhalder says moving to a farm with Nikki Reed has been "magic"

He told PEOPLE: "[It's been] magic. It's really the way it's always supposed to have been. I think now you're seeing a lot of people who were working in corporate offices, and you can see it now from a societal standpoint. People are having a really hard time getting back to work.

"People have seen that their time and the value of their time and the value proposition of time has shifted a bit. Be more engaged, be outdoors more, spend more time with one another."

Ian also revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic taught him and Nikki to appreciate what is important.

He said: "I think what the pandemic sort of did was show us that moments matter. Birthdays matter. Holidays matter. These small little granular moments with one another really matter. And that is why Nikki and I find that rural or even urban/rural lifestyle - which I think a lot of people are getting into, whether it's permaculture, building food forests - we're past the point of just thinking that we're going to stop all this by not using plastic straws and driving electric cars.

"We are moving away from just the word sustainability, because at the end of the day, sustainability means maintaining the status quo, which doesn't work, At Brother's Bond [his bourbon company with 'The Vampire Diaries co-star Paul Wesley] and in our household too, we use the 're'

words: regenerate, reuse, reclaim, reconstitute, rejigger, re-everything. It's regenerative - not just sustainable."