Haru to Sakura, as deer and rabbit

“You’d end up living in only one season a year, no spring, no cherry blossoms, and no love.”

That’s how someone rated my lifestyle, exactly after I’d talked about my relationship planning (as long as you call it a ‘planning’ and mercifully absolve my incel status). To be honest, it hurts at first, but it also hurts afterward still, and the only benefit it brings to me is that I’ve begun to seriously consider this topic (and hence comes this post). Thus, I’ve come up with another story to counter the rating, as well as to relieve myself:

“Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you.”

And it would be worth noting that, my citation is from an ancient sci-fi from the 60s of the last century, The Dandelion Girl, in which the heroine, Julie Danvers, a time traveler from the future, embarks on a journey that intertwines love and time. She would cross the boundaries of time, only to seek the realization of their pitiful relationship, which, though full of yearning and promise, is ultimately destined to remain unfinished. Julie, much like the fleeting encounters I reflect upon, faces love as something brief, beautiful, and tragic all at once, forever bound by the limits of time and space.

The Quiet Aftermath: Reflecting on the Absence of Love

It was in the quiet aftermath of that harsh verdict that I found myself both confronted and oddly liberated. The initial sting of “living in only one season” lingered, but it slowly turned into a puzzle I couldn’t ignore. What season was I truly living in, and was it so bad that it felt like a perpetual winter? A kind of stark, colorless existence that missed out on the warmth and bloom of love, and yet… was there more to it than I had first assumed?

The more I reflected, the more I realized that the absence of love, as cold and barren as it might sound, isn’t necessarily a life sentence. Maybe, I thought, it’s not about the absence of something as much as it’s about how one chooses to define and experience that absence. That rabbit, that deer, and today—you—each represent different parts of the journey, different encounters along the way, no matter how fleeting or seemingly inconsequential they may be.

And so, here I stand, contemplating not just the fact that I might be living in one season, but the possibility that, maybe, seasons change only when we allow them to. To take this reflection deeper, I find myself navigating the space between two perspectives: the one that is frozen in place, too afraid to move, and the other that keeps searching, no matter the seasons.

The Philosophy of Seasons: Challenging the Concept of Absence

This is where philosophy steps in—those long, winding paths we walk in our minds when our hearts are unsure of where they stand. Through this lens, my life as it stands might be scrutinized with sharp eyes, yet it also holds a certain freedom in its contradictions, even within this incel status or anything that bothers, if you will.

Back to the rating: “No spring, no cherry blossoms, and no love”—the words that stung me initially. A harsh critique, yes, but it reveals a profound question: How much of life are we willing to let be defined by what we lack? And can we really choose to live in a season, or is it a consequence of forces beyond our control? Here, my story of a rabbit, a deer, and you invites a deeper conversation on the matter.

From a postmodern perspective, one might argue that what we consider a “season” is itself an illusion—a fleeting, ever-shifting concept rather than a fixed point. Love, just like seasons, cannot be owned or possessed in a way that we control, and so long as we define ourselves by what’s missing, we may find ourselves chasing an image rather than experiencing the becoming of it. The lack, in fact, might not be the point at all. Rather, it’s about the fragments—each sighting of a rabbit, deer, or you—that might mean more in the larger puzzle of existence. Love, then, isn’t a destination but a series of fleeting encounters, a never-ending process of change.

Through an existential lens, the reality of living in one season speaks to an individual’s struggle to find meaning in an indifferent world. The question isn’t about the absence of love, but whether one has the will to confront and engage with it despite its complexities. “Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit,” I say—not a definitive answer, but a choice in how to respond to what has been encountered. Here, I, as an individual, am free to assign my own meaning, to say that my experience is valid, regardless of whether it matches societal standards or others’ expectations.

Lastly, in the context of mono-no-aware—the Japanese aesthetic of beauty in impermanence—the absence of love might seem like a tragedy. But in the midst of its fleeting nature, there’s beauty in the recognition of what might have been, in what could be. A rabbit seen yesterday is no longer here, but it was beautiful in that moment. And the deer from yesterday, too, lives only in my memory now, but it’s no less significant. Love, too, might be fleeting, but that does not diminish its value; instead, it becomes a reminder of how fragile and precious each encounter can be. The “seasons” we find ourselves in might be transitional, but they hold their own quiet beauty. The fact that I can witness it, feel it, and remember it, means that something is still alive within me—alive, even if only momentarily.

So, here I stand—still thinking, still questioning. Maybe this is the season I live in right now, and I’m okay with that. After all, the only thing I can truly control is how I live it.