Winter is Here
Winter is here and those who know about the weather in Canada already know that January is the coldest month of the year. It’s already been snowing since late November but while the shortest day of the year has already passed on December 21th, shorter days do not mean colder days. The coldest days are usually in January when the days are now progressively getting longer. Why am I writing about the weather? Well, to paraphrase a famous playwright, “now is the winter of our discontent”.
Winter is associated with sadness but in normal times, people would usually be talking about experiencing Winter Blues at this time of the year. Winter Blues is clinically defined as a form of seasonal depression. Doctors have even associated winter blues with the over-production of Melatonin as a result of sleeping too much because of longer periods of darkness in winter. People’s Dopamine levels drop and it becomes harder for them to feel motivated, energetic, and interested in life.
The Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus seems to have arrived at the most unfortunate time to compound the effects of seasonal depression. Most countries are now engaged in what is termed as the 4th wave of the pandemic. Schools and businesses are under lock-down while sports events, concerts, and all other forms of social gatherings are banned. Hospitals have suspended non-essential surgeries to focus on treating the multitudes of Covid patients that are flooding in. Healthcare is free here in Canada but the wait will kill you so hanging around in hospital waiting rooms is only for people who are severely sick.
Not surprisingly though, certain segments of the population in most countries are not submitting to the compounding effects of Covid-19 on seasonal depression. One segment of these people are the white supremacists who believe that their ancestors already made sacrifices in the past that ensures their right to freedom of choice today. They are now deep in the snow of another form of psychological winter I call Sanity Resistance.
Another segment of depression fighters are those who like to create “Boogie-Men” to justify their own fear of the unknown. They perceive these boogie-men as either the Government or Deep State secret society elites. Some even believe that the boogie-men are working to kill them off for some nonsense reason. They can’t see how dysfunctional governments really are because political leaders are people of all the segments I mentioned above. The only difference is that regular people gave politicians power to dictate laws and policies over them.
The last segment are people who believe that their body was made special by a god and a devil is using tricks to corrupt it so that he can steal their soul. They look beyond all the advancements in medicine that have taken humanity from barbaric Blood-letting to creating vaccines to fight diseases. Their only dilemma in their winter of discontent is contemplating their worthiness to their god because if they get a disease and die, it will surely be a sign of unworthiness.
Winter is here but I don’t let shorter days, longer nights, colder weather or the noise of white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, or religious idealists get me down. I rely on the knowing that my time in this life is only temporary. Although I’m only in this life for the experience, I chose to create a purpose, which is to drop bread crumbs for those seeking a clear path towards defining their own Ethical interpretation of Life. Corruption, fear, sadness, and depression only prevail because the concepts that were created to maintain human happiness are all unethical.