Its 28 degrees outside tonight and slowly slipping lower.  Frost glitters on the cars parked outside of our house and the dog's 12 inch deep water basin already has thin fractured ice forming on the surface.  Its quite, no wind.  I was sitting outside in the little house burning a cigarette and quietly cursing the dead cold that surrounded me, amusing myself with the large amount of steam that would erupt out of my mouth, a mixture of smoke and the heat of my breath, thinking of that wonderful cigar that I tasted two nights ago. 

 

It occurred to me in the midst of my musing, while I was thinking of the foul mood I have been in all day, that perhaps it was the cold that depressed me so.  After all it steals the heat that we produce and kills living things, why would it not steal my good mood.  Yes, it made perfect sense, damned cold.  My lighter snapped crisply as I lit another cigarette.

 

Then it occurred to me, while I was watching the smoke that had collected about the ceiling curl around the fluorescent lights that there was another property to the cold I had neglected to notice...it numbs feeling.  Yes it was horrible to be teeth clatteringly cold, shivering uncontrollably, but eventually the shivering stops, the pain stops, the nerves are numbed and no longer relay messages of pain to the brain.  The cold numbs the pain, and without additional heat, we feel no more. 

 

I have read somewhere before that freezing to death is a peaceful way to die, after the pain is numbed away the victim is peacefully lulled into a sleep in which they breath their last, perhaps unaware of what has happened. 

 

My mind immediately brought me to thinking about the cold that people allow themselves to be consumed by.  Bitterness, resentment, a love lost; these things make people not want to ever feel emotional pain again so they avail themselves of the cold.  They steel themselves against further emotional harm by allowing the cold to numb their feelings.  No more feelings...no more pain.  I began to pity those whom I have met who are calloused, bitter, and indifferent.  Perhaps they are not bad people after all, maybe they are simply numbing themselves to escape their own pain, I pitied them. 

 

Then my mind wandered to my own pain and the cold that I numb it with.  The alcohol, the running from place to place, even the cigarette burning in my hand was my numbness...my cold.  A single tear slipped down my cheek as I said to no one at all, I don't want to be cold, numb, and indifferent.  For I fear that my current struggle is ever pushing me towards that chilly solution.  I do not want to travel that quite road into the cold.  It is a solution to pain, but a hollow, lonely, and mirthless one.  I desperately needed someone to talk to since the dogs haven't the slightest grasp of metaphysical philosophy, or the English language for that matter.  Sitting there laying on their sides throwing wistful glances at their food dishes which only a couple of hours ago had held their dinner.  How I envied them. 

 

So in order to avoid the numbness, to be in the cold and not consumed by in, what do we do?  In the physical world we wear more clothes, do little exercises to increase our own heat output, or draw near to a fire.  I must say that I find myself at a loss in trying to translate this into the realm of the mind.  How do I shield myself from this invisible emotional cold, how do I prevent the numbness, what must I do to stay warm?