Winter, spring and summer

Kamal

11 Dec 2025 — 1 min read

I don't like winter. I wouldn't say I hate it – I try, and generally manage, not to let things like this get to me like that – but I definitely don't like it. It's cold, often very cold, and dark. In London it's also often wet. How that doesn't doom that season for everybody is almost beyond me.

Having said that, I kinda do understand why some people like winter. There are some good things about winter. For me, I love Christmas in London maybe even more than I love Christmas in the Caribbean: the lights, the carols, and the food are all great. Some people also say they like it just because of how it differs from the other temperate seasons, or because of the kinds of indoor gatherings associated with it, or because of the fashion associated with it. Others also like it because of winter sports, or because their birthdays or anniversaries are in winter, or something like that.

I get all that. What I don't get is preferring winter to summer and spring – and particularly thinking that winter is better than summer and spring –, especially preferring them just as seasons without things like birthdays and the kinds of sports thrown in. If you're a winter baby, I strongly suspect that your moving to Argentina or New Zealand and celebrating your birthday in summer would disillusion you of your supposed preference for winter. (I suppose I can't separate winter from winter activities like that.)

More generally, given that (reasonable) summer/spring temperatures and summer/spring sunlight just are better for (virtually all?) human bodies and minds, saying you think winter is better than summer and spring seems to me to be confusing an adaptive attitude with an objective, human-centred assessment of the good of the three. I can see someone coming to love winter more than summer, but that no more means that she should think that winter is better than summer and spring than you loving your mother's food means you should think it's better than the food at the best restaurants of your mother's culture's cuisine in the world.

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