Imagine if people only worked six months out of the year. Half the people would be winter workers who choose to grind through the dark months and then chill and play during the summer, and half of the people would be ones who would rather work through the warm season and then rest and hibernate in peace over the winter, more or less free to choose whichever you like.
There would be families with a strong identity about which season they work in, and people who say that someone “has only ever worked one season” as a way to imply that someone isn’t adventurous by nature. There would be parents who agree to take turns working opposite seasons, so one of them can always be at home with the kids, and old folks who lament that their adult children and niblings were Forced By Circumstance to work opposite seasons from them, while the youths in question welcome the work as an excuse to avoid these inconvenient relatives.
You never know if the construction worker up at 6 am in the summer spends their winters writing murder mysteries, or if the winter shift librarian spends their summer cultivating a rare breed of heirloom apples. Or simply meditating, observing nature, living quietly and baking bread. Asking someone “what do you do in your free season?” tells as much, if not more, about the person than “what do you do for a living?” And nobody answers “nothing”. Everyone can think of something that they want to do, perhaps not productive, but still enlightening, constructive and cultivating.
Nobody who is in full health and well rested can stand spending half of the year simply doing absolutely nothing.