The temperature hovers around five degrees in the mornings, schoolchildren are making preparations for striking out on their own and Saturday will see coastal dwellers celebrate the Night of the Ancient Bonfires.

The sea reflects fires into which fall the salty tears of parents, weary from having to install endless schoolbook covers. All of it serves to mark the end of summer and the irreversible onslaught of autumn.

Looking around, it seems the fall hardly has anything good in store. The only person in Estonia who can face the looming gloom with certainty is the recent former director of National Opera Estonia Aivar Mäe whose €40,000 severance package should be enough to make the sun comes out now and then.

However, even this ointment has its fly as the September 1 premiere of Anna Karenina by Estonia teaches us that while one can find passion and love in life without a steady job, one still ends up getting hit by a train.

Great hopes have been placed on Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" in terms of bringing Estonia renown and Tallinn hordes of movie tourists. The film's stars told ETV's Jüri Muttika that they loved Estonia and its capital, while I'm afraid the only reason they did was the fact they were talking to Muttika.

I'm sure that while they put in a good word for Muttika with foreign journalists, they likely concentrated more on the charms of Mumbai than of Tallinn when giving an interview to an Indian network.

While expectations on the motion picture to advertise Estonia are not misplaced, even if fans of "Tenet" do come to Estonia, the only way for them to follow in their idol's footsteps is to spend two weeks in quarantine at the Linnahall building.

Apparently, anti-violence advocates are violent, speeches meant to unite the people serve to drive the wedge ever deeper and going mushroom picking, one can consider it luck if one finds mushrooms before being found in the forest oneself.

In other words, nothing but pain and misery hitting even the most influential people in the world, such as Aleksandr Lukashenko whose rule is being protested in Belarus and yours truly who a few days ago got caught in a shower so fierce so as not to have had a dry spot even in between gritted teeth.

To top it all off, we still have the coronavirus that can in the near future result in a night-time alcohol sales ban and night clubs closing their doors. Because it can happen virtually at any time, we would do well to drink, dance and generally party in advance as you never know when things can take a turn for the worse and the taps get turned off.

Therefore, the future seems to hold little in the way of comfort whichever way one looks at it, with the new season of "Rannamaja" sure to drive the final nail into the coffin of autumn depression.

One ray of hope in the midst of all this negativity is the knowing that I will not be alone in my dejectedness. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," I say, quoting the Ecclesiastes, knowing that many of my fellow Estonians feel the same way.

Feeling a part of something greater is, of course, good, but all it really means at the end is the glumness taking on a national dimension.

At the same time, hundreds if not thousands of seers and life coaches are going to a great deal of trouble and organizing group sessions to stop us worrying and start us living. Some of these courses aren't even all that expensive – just half a month's salary buys you a miracle-working crystal to put in your mouth and because it is rude to talk with your mouth full, you can watch the quality of your life and the lives of your loved ones soar.

Still, I am for some reason reluctant to believe that a life coach's brilliant exterior hides true passion for life and rather suspect it is love for money. But hey, it's something – one should accept love where one finds it.

How to overcome the fall of our discontent is a perpetual question repeated at nauseam. The only practicable and universal solace is knowing that things are never so bad as not to have any more potential for getting worse. Therefore, let us regardless stay positive waiting for the somber fall because the year 2020 can get several times worse still in its remaining months. So it goes.

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