Daylight Losses, SAD and the Urbaner's Fantasy of Nature

It's too dark. Daylight saving time is a funny thing, during the summer it won't get really dark until about 10. The air is mild and you can stay out as long as you like, even as the ends of barbecues and picnics get a little chilly you don't need many layers to warm up and it's easy to spot where you left those bread rolls or that bag of crisps.

We can thank daylight saving time for that, BST - British Summer Time, a glorious thing. It causes my mind to flutter back to old summers when I was a teenager, skateboarding, playing football, and getting drunk with my friends. The summer my father passed, the whole gang from my school seemed to huddle around me. We must have hung out every day, finding new places to skate, new people to play football with and new levels of inebriation. They softened the trauma of that summer so much that I now look back on it fondly.

Perhaps it's my adoration for summer that makes me despise winter so disproportionately, it's only a bit of cold weather. You wouldn't have summer without winter, everything is held together in a state of cycle and balance. We always find ways to make winter more bearable. Stews and scarves and fireplaces come to mind. The yanks cram all their holidays into these frigid months, Halloween, Thanks Giving and Christmas. I always find it funny that in November, they celebrate the peaceful beginning to decades of exploitation and violence against native peoples and we celebrate the capture, torture and execution of a religious extremist terrorist (Guy Fawkes); maybe we should switch, it seems more fitting.

                             

Poor Native Americans, you were the hospitable ones who gave food to the starving colonists and yet the art depicts the Europeans as the kind and generous folk.

Daylight saving time is something we all take for granted, rarely do we ever stop to ask why it is that our clocks change twice a year. Contrary to popular belief, daylight savings are not for the sake of farmers, the scheme was originally set out by the Germans during World War One in order to save fuel for lamps and other lights that would be used during dark hours. This idea was taken on by the Allies as an efficient way to save fuel but it makes very little sense given our current energy consumption habits commercially and within the home. In spite of energy spending and accidents due to sleep loss increase thanks to daylight savings, 70 countries still observe this odd trend. It's stupid and we should get rid of it. You might say that it's a tiny issue that we shouldn't waste airtime on but I would actually disagree.

I believe that losing daylight, especially during the hours of free time that people get, typically after 17:00 and before 8:00 for 9-5 workers, actually has serious impacts on the individual's mental health. If your whole day is spent either in the office or in darkness, life can seem very oppressive. In countries with very short days and very little sunlight close to the north pole, people tend to drink heavily as a way of coping. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a version of depression that affects people during a particular time of year that disrupts their eating and sleeping and generally makes them feel lower and less energetic, a lack of movement can then cause the depression to worsen. Like my father was, I am quite prone to being thrown off by the fact that there is less daylight, it makes the joy of living in the world a bit harder to keep at the front of my mind. It makes it a bit harder to get out of bed in the morning or exercise or eat properly.

                           

At least those who brave the dark and cold of Norwegian winter get a chance to catch a glimpse of this. 

I am currently fighting the effects of SAD and trying to maintain a healthy body and mind but it can be difficult. When I was less aware that I am affected by it I was at much more risk. Simply knowing that SAD is coming and that I need to be prepared for it helps me to keep my balance and live happily, 2018 has been a year of huge improvement for me and I aim to keep it up. I promise that I will devote a whole blog post to this but I always say that mental health is something you have to work on day in and day out, if you take care of your brain, it will take care of you; just like your body.

The ennui of urban life seems to be more apparent when it's cold, I often enjoy my city life during the summer because it seems like everything is happening. During the winter, I long for nature. A slower life to match the shorter days, a small town to retreat to, far away from the big city. Thankfully, I can now satisfy that yearning every year when I spend the Christmas break at my mother's home in Devon. There's something so much better about Christmas away than in the same place you spend most of the year, a romance that couldn't exist in a London home, unless it was written in a Charles Dickens novel perhaps.

This longing for nature is a product of my upbringing, since I was a child I have been reading books and watching documentaries about the natural world and all of its wonders. I was fascinated by the cheetah, the venus flytrap, and the volcano. As I saw more of the natural world, I was not at all disappointed but there was a slight feeling of anti-climax. I understand now that it was because I romanticised the great outdoors, I thought that there was some great sight out there that would change my life forever. That some thrilling story would come out of my adventures in the wilder parts of the world. There were many stories, I am looking forward to telling them one day, but they were nothing like the Tolkein inspired scenes that my mind had cooked up.

I want finish by bringing your attention back to the picture at the top of this blog-post, this is not a photograph of the real natural world but a snapshot of a recently released video-game called Red Dead Redemption II. The realism of the wild west that Rockstar Games has painstakingly brought to life for the player is so effective that I myself felt like I was actually there, the ability to switch to first person camera heightens this effect. I found myself straying off the beaten trail into forests and swamps and valleys without any aim in mind but the sheer joy of being alone in nature. That romance is still very much alive in me, brought out even by a virtual experience. If you're feeling down and hate this weather we're having, don't be afraid to seek out support from your friends, family or doctor; that is what they're there for. And if you feel like you've forgotten the beauty of the outside, all you need to do is curl up in your duvet, put on a film or game or documentary showcasing the natural world and keep your childish sense of wonder alive. As Chris Martin sang in that one song: "We live in a beautiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do."

Jack ♥️

Ugh! Bloody gorgeous! Thank you Rockstar Games for this work of genius.