Maybe the discontent that comes to us in winter is in the realization that every moment of joy is but a brief resting point on the greater journey toward oblivion. Or maybe that’s too grand. Maybe the discontent in winter is the discontent about the fleeting quality of the present. Nothing holds still for very long, after all. Nothing that feels good stays good for very long. Even in Los Angeles, the perfect sunny day turns to night; a feeling of contentment is replaced by anxiety somewhere along the line.
If there is a greater contentment to be found, then, it is in the contentment of discontent. It is in the willingness, maybe, to have your winters and to have them in their dreariness and decay, neither surrendering completely to that discontent nor pretending to solve it. The cycle of the seasons is, after all, utterly pointless. It just goes round and round. I do not think any meaning can be found in stepping outside that cycle to explain its purpose from afar. Winter can’t be made glorious, can’t be transformed into endless summer.