HOW DO I SURVIVE WINTER?

Barely.

Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash

Comrades,

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Below, an essay on the stupidity of winter sports, and my desire to live more like a hibernating bear.

How do I survive the winter? Barely. The worst thing about winter is the pressure to go out and participate in the imbecilic rituals called “winter sports.” It is difficult for me to imagine something more stupid. Think about skiing: is it not the closest human equivalent you can get to a hamster running on a wheel? You climb (or are dragged) to the top of a hill – why? To come back down on your skis… Wouldn’t it be better to simply stay down and read a good book?

When I think about winter, I always dream about bears and their long sleep. I heard they go to sleep for a couple of months, awaken once a month or so just to urinate and have a little drink, and then quickly go to sleep again… certainly better than skiing!

I was told in Portugal that, in the early XXth century, poor farmers in the south were doing something similar. For reasons of profit, landowners largely abandoned growing corn on their fields there and replaced them with cork oaks which require much less work. So how did the poor farmers survive the long winter months with no work to do? They got accustomed to lay in bed and sleep most of the time, thereby reducing their bodily needs to a minimum – just some wine with water and bread crumbs every couple of days. This was called economic progress in Portugal – no wonder southern Portugal was a hotbed of the Communist Party which organized the farmers’ resistance.

But since we increasingly live in regulated and controlled places where natural seasons are a thing of the past, this way is closed to us. Perhaps our version of the poor Portuguese farmer in winter is to spend long hours in front of a computer screen, half asleep in digital pseudo-excitement.

     So what should I do, since I hate video games and think Facebook and X (Twitter) should be prohibited? The most viable solution for me is to visit a traditional summer resort (like a city on the Spanish or Italian coast) in winter – a new world opens up to you. One sees the place out of its tourist glitter, in all its drabness, dark alleys with crumbling facades, stupid old local people, closed hotels, abandoned parks and beaches, etc. It’s like seeing a squid on a dry table, outside water. But sometimes a new kind of magic emerges, that of freedom – freedom from the superego pressure to enjoy vacations. One is free to spend time wandering around, to catch up on reading and working, to watch old movies and TV series one never had time to see at home…

     Working is what life is about, so for me as a philosopher, the ideal winter vacation place is nonetheless somewhere far up north, something like a suburb of Reykjavik. Why? Hegel said that the owl of Minerva (a symbol of wisdom) takes off and flies at dusk - and there is dusk (or even darkness) all the time there in winter, except for a couple of mid-day hours. So in Reykjavik, the owl of Minerva takes off in early afternoon, giving you long hours to think. In such a situation, one happily forgets the stupid saying “Don’t just think, act, do something!” – the motto of a winter vacation in Reykjavik is: “Don’t just act, take time to think!”

     Another no less stupid saying is: “Be careful not to throw out the baby with bathwater!” On a Reykjavik winter vacation, you follow exactly the opposite motto: One should happily throw out the annoying baby and keep only the bathwater, pondering its secrets.     

Slavoj