The Winter and the Loneliness

We all know those feelings, mostly called Winter Depression, as the days get shorter and shorter and the weather in Germany especially gets dark and grey. Fog puts its mantle over the hills and forests, hiding the shiny cities in black and white and shade of grey. Many people hate this time of the year and desperately wait for spring.

But it is also a good time; spending hours of walking alone through the grey forests, letting your thoughts fly in that sweet feeling of loneliness and sadness. Sadness is nothing wrong; it belongs to us as joy and fun and excitement but mostly we neglect it, it feels wrong in some sense. This is why most people dont like the late autumn, all colors fade, the light fades and darkness dominates. But if you just open your eyes you might recognise the beauty of the landscapes at this time of the year, the softening fog reduces unnecessary details, the foggy air gives everything more depth and transforms a simple path into a mythical experience.

Walking along these paths gives you an inspiration of eternity since all is somehow hidden and yet visible. Diving deep into these shades of grey you can live your intrinsic sadness to discover that this can be as deep as falling in love, a valuable emotion that opens your mind deep towards a vision of new. Without the dark days you can not enjoy the bright days, there is no light without shadow. Nowadays too many of us seek for the kind of perfection which marketing teaches us, that kind of perfection we never reach. The resulting sadness and despair is, in contrast to the healthy sadness, self destructive.

You can find satisfaction in any thing as long as you acept that nothing is forever, everything is bound for death and destruction to give room for new. The death of nature in Winter is only for new birth of life in Spring. The storm that destroys a beautiful tree lays the foundation for a whole basket of new life. The building that falls ruin might serve as a ground for a new garden or might be revived by new life.

We choose to find solace in the short days and grey skies. We do not fight against the sorrow but rather we savour it.