The Special Report today is as much about the joys of summer as it is about the resilient human spirit; a spirit that must live on despite the depressing times we are cursed to live in. How does one move on after a case of lynching of an innocent bright student within a university campus, just how?

But one must. This Special Report is to affirm that we don’t just learn to live with courage and dignity but appreciate the beauty that surrounds us and celebrate it too. And for that one doesn’t have to look hard really; the beauty is there in simple things and acts and moments that we often ignore.

As the summer season has set in, the media is already crying hoarse about loadshedding; soon there will be news about the heat wave, humidity, lack of water availability and people’s woes in general.

Read also: Summers of joy

Of course, those are real issues too that must not be trivialised. But do these issues cover the entire human experience? Isn’t there something that we hugely miss? Yes, there are people among us who find the sprightly summers a better time of the year than the cold dull winters. Then there are those, young and old, who have found ways and means of coping with this long-stretching season with its equally long-stretching days in an especially meaningful way. Games, outdoor and indoors, travel, reading -- summers are a bliss.

There is, of course, nature that provides respite -- in the shape of flowers and trees and rain and what not. It is this side of our collective experience that we have tried to cover today.