Music: Melancholia/Sicario By: Jóhann Jóhannsson
Why Winter?
Among friends and colleagues, I’m often asked: why do snow and winter appear so frequently in my visualization works? I rarely explain it, and the question is understandable — adding snow to renderings has a strong visual impact. I don’t deny that, but for me, winter is never just a visual effect; in fact, it’s often the very last step in my creative process.
Let me begin this post with the following title:
The Winter Mind
For me, winter is more than just one of the seasons of the year; above all, winter is a way of thinking.
The atmosphere of winter is a philosophical retreat — a place for solitude and contemplation. In winter, space becomes acoustic, and the echoes of the environment fade away. For me, the environment is a collection of thoughts and reactions; in winter, the mechanism of judgment dissolves, and we are left only with the solitude of our inner selves. It is as if winter is a mirror — a mirror of our thoughts and the subtle crimes of the mind.
In winter, one must tread carefully and move slowly, for we do not know what lies beneath that powder of snow resting on the surface of our thoughts — just as we do not know what rests beneath the snow on a stone-paved street; or what stories a face has lived through before the snow has settled upon it. Thus, until the snow melts, the only weapon we can carry is thought — critical thought.
Contrary to the common belief, winter does not render everything white; nor are colors divided into the binary of black and white. All colors exist — white is merely the dominant hue, a backdrop, like a blank canvas absorbing every tone so that the final subject may emerge. In winter, we all walk upon a single, shared background.
The air and atmosphere of winter captivate all five senses, numbing smell, sight, taste, hearing, and touch — leaving us with nothing to do but think.
Or, as my favorite philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo writes in the introduction to his book The Winter Mind:
Winter is a time for thinking. In winter there is not much bustle, and also because it is a time foretold. For when winter comes, is spring far behind? All the same, according to Plutarch quoting Nits’ten: “In a faraway land, the cold is so severe that words freeze as they leave one’s lips. Later, the ice melts and the words become audible. Thus, whatever is spoken in winter will not be heard until the following summer.” The dead never complain about being in the cold, unlike solitary human beings. The definition of a human being in isolation is that the rules of life do not exist for them. Whatever is considered a violation of the rights of civilized daily life, in another definition, does not exist. But there is no hell greater than the prison of nothingness. Nothingness is the core concept of isolation. Violence is nothingness. But when it becomes a tool, it is even more void. The physical and psychological violence inflicted upon the solitary human is precisely what they are least able to accept.
The winter mind does not fight against violence; it fights beyond it. Its task is to think beyond violence. Its task is to think beyond the prison camp. The winter mind is what gives value to the freedom of human thought. Human life, as long as it possesses a winter mind, is both mysterious and inviolable. Emerson writes: Every mind must know its whole lesson, and on the basis of that, clarify its general stance. What it does not see, what it does not approach, it will not know. No one can think about the winter of our age and beyond the cold of the prison camp unless they possess a winter mind. Freedom must be such — or it is nothing.
Pened by: Pouria Mojdeh, autumn’s child awaiting the embrace of winter
It is always snowing in a corner of my mind.