There is beauty in each, but I am not sure if the "dark times" are part of autumn or winter - or just a nameless void :)
Next year should hopefully be a little more comfortable for us as most of the renovations will be over, fingers crossed. Then, it will be a glass house project so that we can grow some tomatoes of our own.
I do think that a lot of life's instability these days is driven by a lack of understanding and experience in society. We tend to focus ever more heavily on the irrelevant and absurd.