Winter has many significations in the collective mind of mankind. Sometimes it is associated with birth/hope and sometimes with death/”depression”. In Christianity for example, as we know, winter is the birth of hope, represented by Jesus. Psychologically speaking, hope gives us the necessary strength to overcome present obstacles and look confidently towards the future.
In a dialectical logic, I would say that the thesis (birth) and the antithesis (death) generate the synthesis in the collective mind of mankind. In other words, winter is the season that births ideas and projects based on autumnal reflections, and which will finalise and be implemented only with the arrival of spring. It is a lived hope, untested and not yet implemented into reality. We are living, therefore, in a suspended world between the imaginary and the real, full of fairy tale and legends, where fantasy can defeat reality!
Happy Holidays!
Prof. Daniel David, Rector of Babeș-Bolyai University
