[Seasons: Summer XIV]
If you remember from grade school, the earth tilts toward the sun in the summer. Or, more precisely, the hemisphere that tilts toward the sun experiences summer, while the opposite hemisphere experiences winter. Consequently, the the sun rises earlier and sets later. Days are longer, warmer, and the UV index is significantly higher.
Summer is the season for sun bathing. It’s also the season for cancer. The same phenomenon that draws us outside to the beach and the park is quite dangerous in excess. Counterintuitively, the best way to enjoy the sun is by staying out of it. We love to swim, but we wear sunscreen. We enjoy hikes but we wear hats. We are drawn to the pool but sit under sun umbrellas. Too much sun is unhealthy.
Los Angeles—Hollywood more specifically, but most of Southern California qualifies—is the most dangerous sun I know of. While it feels like a perpetual summer there, it’s not the UV rays that are so dangerous. It’s the fallacy that life can be a perpetual summer. The summer seasons of life, full of brightness and optimism, good fortune and growth, virility and expansion, are wonderful, but too much and too often is deadly.
We need all four seasons of life.
Don’t believe the lie that perpetual summer is possible (or desirable).
You’ll get burned.
