The icy bite of the cold is heartless and cruel. My eyes slowly open from a restless night of sleep, and I feel the sting of the wintery winds within the darkness of my room. Winter epitomizes a unique type of suffering I’ve been experiencing every morning this season. It’s the suffering of winter’s cold touch, reflecting the world’s mood – built on isolation, protectionism, and irrevocably, loneliness.
In sleep, there are dreams, dreams, and more dreams. I have an abundance of them. Yet, a life spent only dreaming is indeed a wasted life. My eyes close again, and the despair of recent dark winter days nibbles at my spirit, numbingly feasting on my bones while consuming my soul throughout the day.
My broken radiator emphasizes the harshness of crawling out of bed. My bed of warmth, a vapid, isolated cocoon from the cold, calls to me, whispering of warm dreams it offers and the bliss of holding me forever. This ineradicable suffering leads to my paralysis of the season.
Winter spends her time wrapping and weaving a sheath of ice around my body every season. Spring is usually when my existential angst hits, but here I am, trying to shed the dark skin of winter months before I typically do.
This dark chill accumulates over time, and with every passing minute, I feel it tightening.
I pause and whip off the covers. The words Fyodor Dostoevsky said more than a century ago bring a warped smile. If I do not rise to the challenge, this continued suffering will kill my spirit and eat away at my life until I’m nothing but dust.
The shivering starts from deep inside, and I want to crawl back into bed – unworthy. I want to drift off to dream once again and continue sleepwalking through this life. His words come back:
“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
Suffering. It is the intrinsic definition of life.
Escaping from suffering is easy. I can roll back under the covers and dream. Dream all I want. Dreams fuel ideas; ideas open up possibilities and, in the end, opportunities for success. It doesn’t take much to convince myself. And yet, success is never enough. The next day, my universe is empty, and it is time to go through the motions again—a Sisyphus-inspired existence.
I know the stories—the chaos, the pain, the struggle. They are the necessary first steps to gain experience and find meaning.
We need suffering as much as we need happiness, albeit in different doses (97% happiness and 3% suffering would work for me, but that’s impossible). I never fully understood a quote from Dostoevsky’s novel, Notes from Underground, until later in life: “Which is better: cheap happiness or sublime suffering? Well, come on, which is better?”
His words make getting out of my slumber the least courageous-sounding thing I could do.
Sliding out of bed, the cold accentuates my aches. I feel myself falling back into a dream.
I trod, heavy in spirit and strength, to the corner of my room in search of a set of clothes lying on the floor – not clean, yet not dirty enough to merit the time to be washed. Perfect. Beside the pile lies my dusty tripod and camera gear, old friends from what seems a lifetime ago.
My camera and lens are simple tools that have, in the past, taken me to sublime, beautiful scenes and cultures. There, I absorbed what felt like the essence of life—moments that transported me spiritually into another world.
The ecstasy of the sublime. Beauty beyond words, and only the emotions of my soul offer a proper definition. Such rare moments contrast with my frequent dark winter moods. A point in time when a dream transitions into reality, terrifying in its beauty and power, fueling the spirit.
My sigh is audible, wondering if I’ll ever find such sublime magic again. I watch a spider spin down from the ceiling, land gracefully, and race underneath my pile of clothes. The shock of my eight-legged friend is brief, and she helps me realize the sublime ain’t gonna be found here.
With continued detachment, I break the desire to crawl back into bed and carefully throw on the least dirty clothes I find. Looking out into the darkness of my ice-riddled window, I glance down at my camera. “You want to go out in this weather… sure, let’s do it!” I mock the enthusiasm of my lens staring at me. “We will see who is laughing when you freeze mid-shot.” And I immediately feel bad for speaking to my friend in such a manner.
As I walk past my bed, an endless thought circles my head – to heed the call of warm dreams…
Winter traps me in eternal daydreams, fantasies of the universe I’ve created—a world of order where my spirit glistens like ice and dark contrasting views of reality are muted, only to sweep over me when I awake.
The idea of hiding in dreams and fantasies weighs me down. Lost in thought, I stagger through reality, half awake, stumbling through a day as if waking in the middle of the night in darkness and stubbing my toe on the way to the bathroom.
Blaming this on winter is easy. Wintery barren scenes suck the warmth of my soul, so lying in bed inept, sinking deeper and deeper, hiding in dreams is the least painful option. There is a space that separates the dream state of the mind from reality, and this is my world. The further I move away from reality, the more reality enters my dreams.
A conversation from the other night comes to mind: “What doesn’t cross your mind during the day creeps into every night’s dream and steals sleep again.”
And it steals the day. The winter’s darkness is an abyss for an existentialist’s soul. A smile, just a minute of light. Of sunshine. Of hope. It’s what my soul and dreams scream for.
I lift my head, legs weary from slipping in the snow and ice, and the day’s breaking dawn smiles at me. The sublime moment screams within me, and my sanctuary of dreams is forgotten.
A sliver of hope to face reality begins to simmer. I ponder the countless life-altering opportunities I let pass as I’ve sleepwalked through this dark winter. My mind is conflicted with the tension of these two wildly opposing feelings—one of dreaming and the other of being alive.
The shift within my soul is palpable. How can I ensure it remains? The answer is as clear as the sun’s rays: invite chaos into my world and let it waken my soul. The cold slap to the face chaos provides is a gift, delivering me from endless existential dreaming into the mess of reality.
The reflection of the world is rewarding. My mind drifts back to the countless times I’ve thrown myself into chaos, struggling while digging my miserable way out of whatever mess I’ve found myself in. Those enlightening moments when the voice in my head screams, “I’m alive!” The pain of struggles pales compared to the feeling of making it through. This is the very definition of living.
I miss the feeling.
The sublime of life is more profound than I ever imagined. It’s a paradox; what if moments of suffering are a vestige of the sublime? Reflecting on my suffering, finding pieces of meaning floods my senses. I, again, have found purpose.
Warm rays tangle around my body and mind, a signal that things will get easier, even if the crisp shivers of snow eerily reply, “Not today.”
My fear of not being worthy of suffering is real. Suffering is a crucible for self-discovery and growth. It’s where courage and integrity are found; I can engage and participate in universes other than my own and find existential authenticity instead of existential dread.
This edge of winter is a depressing void of nothingness, yet I’d be an idiot if I resigned myself merely to sit on the edge of this abyss willingly, where one wrong move sends me to the dark depths below. I need to dive into something and wake the soul. I close my eyes and fly back to my cramped, cold room to begin again.
I roll over, rub the sand from my eyes, and try desperately to escape the deep fog of dreams. The seduction of my warm cocoon makes my lids heavy, but I fight the urge to fall back into darkness. My dream is racing with scenes of snow and beauty…
I push myself up, marveling at the simplicity of the day, the sublime beauty of winter.
My eyes move slowly toward the corner of the room. The faint light from my window reflects off my friend, the spider. She is finishing her beautiful web—an intricate pattern lacing around my tripod and entangling my dusty camera and lens… How is this possible?
I look at my clothes, untouched, in the corner, and drop back onto my pillow. Visions of snow and ice, those empty dreams, begin to fade from my mind.
The chill swirls around me again, enticing me to pull up the covers and close my eyes. Winter seeps back into my bones.
I open my eyes… I must pee.
I rise out of bed and into the darkness of the day. Standing naked, I feel the chill of the sublime sweep past me… along with my honor and dignity.
My existential angst has robbed me of another day. “What doesn’t cross your mind during the day creeps into every night’s dream and steals sleep again.” And in the end, it steals life.
My confused mind slowly accepts the reality of the morning trek as another figment of my imagination.
Empty dreams surround me. I need redemption, and this is where I need to be. I want to experience the icy depths of suffering to understand its insignificance when clarity follows. Do I have the courage to take such a plunge?
These cold, cold mornings.
Numbed by age, I smile back to when I was young and fearless—those days of endless adventure. And with these memories, I close my eyes.
Global Sojourns: Photography & Philosophy 
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