I hear a lot of people use the cliche, "Theres no reason to live if all you are doing is surviving." They're wrong. They would be a little less wrong if they said there's no reason to live if all you do is exist, but even that's not right. Surviving is living. Surviving is living life more than existing or even thriving. Nothing makes me realize this like the winter months. Durring the warm season I see or hear about people having fun in the sun, playing, laughing, thriving. Deep down I hate seeing that crap. Most would call me a mopey emo for spurning the sunny days and wishing for the gloom, but screw them. When you're happy and doing well may be when all your feel good chemicals are flowing and you feel content, but being content or even striving for new heights is a novelty, just a novelty. You don't care that you're alive, or even if you do you're probably just "glad to be alive", you're thankful for the pleasant feelings. Winter awakes the primal knowledge that just outside your comfy little house...you...could...die. Everything green is dying or dead, the cold can kill you sure as anything else, and if you happen to be on an icy road trying to bring your food and supplies home you know death could be just one tap of the breaks away. The cold months, make you struggle, make you try. They make you grateful, grateful to whatever, to be alive. Winter is the mother of gods. So you can keep your happy, sunshiny days, sitting in green fields and looking at clouds and crap. Give me the cold, give me the white frosty breath, the frozen branches, the chill in my bones. Give me something to remind me why I'm even trying, why I'm striving, why I'm surviving.