Thoughts on Cold Weather

If there is one thing that should be known about life, it is this: one can never appreciate the tremendous discomfort caused by the cold. As humans, we have an inherent tendency to forget that which has caused us pain in the past. This fact, along with many other things (some of which I hope to discuss later) has led me to my current belief that we, as humans, are tremendously versatile and persistent creatures. Surely, the many monuments of our civilization, the books and poetry and artwork that marks the progression of our culture, like waterlines on a porcelain tub, are indicators of our ability to succeed and flourish in places and in manners that would be otherwise considered impractical or impossible. This progression, these advancements, are all due to the fact that we cannot remember that which has before caused us great pain. Instead, we store our knowledge of past failings, of past goals unmet, in some dark dusty, back closet in our mind. These memories sit there, quietly and perpetually contributing to our conscious process. The ragged edge of pain is dulled by this seclusion; we force unpleasantness to the back of our mind where it must push through countless layers of neural mush in order to reach the front of our mind, and in the process the sharp edge, the painful qualities are lost. So it is with the cold. We remember that cold has the potential to be and indeed often is unpleasant. We know all of this to be true; the intricacies and details that surround and define the interaction of cold temperature and our biological functions; the specific ways in which a dramatic decrease in heat and light can severely inhibit our body's natural ability to perform mundane functions like walking, tying your shoes, or breathing. We even remember how the cold air can invade our minds, freeze everything but the inner parts, the parts that tell us frantically to find shelter, to find warmth. And yet, despite these recollections, despite the fact that we, as humans, seem to be imbued not only with a sense of memory, an sentient awareness of the continuity of time and our place in it, but also with a recognition of the powers and weaknesses of our own recollection machinery; we still manage to find ourselves completely surprised by the cold.

It's cold now, and we had our first significant snowfall last night. I use the word significant to indicate a level of snow that is quantifiable, and which does not turn immediately to an awful slush upon hitting the wet ground. Soon, the ground we'll freeze, and stay frozen for several months, and any snow that falls will stay here, glued to the ground, slowly subliming into the atmosphere on sunny days.