0048

It's funny how so much of my life operates in cycles. Or I guess maybe it's not that strange. After all there are endless cycles governing our existences. The days, weeks, months, and years. Planet earth keeps on turning. The periodic orbits of the moon. Seasons are a big one, and maybe are the cause of all this drama.

Spring is the time of rebirth. It's for all manner of new things; new relationships, new hobbies, new adventures. The heat of summer can be oppressive, but also invigorating. There's no better time to dedicate to the outdoors; to spend on recreation and exploration and imagination. In the autumn the harvest comes, and all the farmers reap what they have sowed and tended throughout the whole year. I also feel that the fall is the the last great hurrah for the biggest goals of the year, before we all settle in for the cold.

Of course, that brings us to winter. A quieter, colder, darker time. A time that used to bring communities together for fear of starvation or frostbite, but now mostly brings them together out of celebration and the holidays. We've conquered hunger and tamed electricity, but we still remember the power that winters held. The nights are longer and the days are colder but our technology keeps us warm.

Ostensibly, I like the cold. I continue biking in the winter except on the very coldest of days. I've gone hiking in the winter before and I particularly enjoy the snow. I also ostensibly like the night. I've written about it before, but something about the darkness puts me in a contemplative and quiet mood. It's the best time to introspect and focus. I don't even mind the lack of sunlight - in fact now that the sunrise is so late I've started waking with the sun which almost grants me more time spent in the light.

Overall, winter sounds great to me, at least on paper. And yet, I've been feeling lazier than usual this winter. I don't entirely think it's the seasons' fault either. I have a feeling that in maybe a month's time, right around when winter is settling in to its coldest and deepest, I'll be full of energy again. More than just energy, but full of zest and vim to continue adventuring and exploring.

Some people get seasonal affective disorder in the winter. The lack of sunlight leads to lethargy and slowness. I consider myself lucky to not experience this; despite keeping my lights dim at home I do still get at least some sunlight everyday. However I think this may be a good metaphor for what's going on. With this it's not the winter itself that's causing the issues but instead it's the lack of sunlight, which can be fixed with particularly powerful light therapy lamps.

Whatever is going on, I think it has to do with kind of a lack of direction. And I suppose that that, in turn, maybe has to do with winter? I'm pretty confident about the first part though. I've come to realize that a sense of laziness, of whiling away my days without anything to show for it, of feeling unfulfilled; all that is due to an absence of something worthwhile to do. Something really interesting and rewarding that I'm motivated about.

A lot of the time I'm in a situation where I pretty much know what I want to do, it's just a matter of executing. Or sometimes I'm in a situation where there's so much going on that there's no shortage of activities to keep me busy. There have been times where I've been very busy with school or socially, but I can't blame the lack of those things for why I'm not doing much. I probably could be more social if I wanted to, but that wouldn't just cleanly solve everything. There have even been times where I've been super sucked into a game or a tv show, but that's also a little less than ideal.

I think that part of the reason is that winter is filled with holidays and travel, and counterintuitively that can make it hard to plan things. There are plenty of big projects I've been mulling over for a while, but it's hard to dedicate the time to getting them off the ground. Especially when my schedule is inconsistent, and I know I'll only want to start something if I can stick to it for a few months.

Actually now that I think about it it's been surprisingly busy up until very recently. Both in and out of work. It all quieted down very suddenly, probably because I needed to pause things until after the holidays. That's why it feels so jarring; I didn't really plan for things to be so quiet all of a sudden and also it is a little strange that I stopped being busy so quickly.

That's why all of this is part of cycles - this happens every year, maybe even every few months, and gracefully recovering from interruptions is a skill to be mastered. In fact interruptions themselves aren't necessarily a bad thing even - it's good to have a variety of different kinds of things going on. It takes a lot of focus to maintain momentum when doing things, and the more I practice regaining that focus the better I'll be at it.

That's also why I know that I'll probably be back and better than ever in January. The good thing about slow laziness is that it's a great time for rest and recuperation, and more importantly for planning and plotting. Spending a lot of time without much to do is one of the best ways to generate entire lists of ideas about what you wish you were doing but are too lazy cowardly weak feeble busy to do right now. Sometimes planning is the hardest part, so this sets things up perfectly for the future.