Something about the cold that makes it better than the heat. The sun and its warmth are a joyful experience. We think of the summer, and we think of the beach, we think of pool parties and we think of the enjoyment that comes with being alive. Not with the cold.
The cold pierces through the bones. The cold forces the body to be active and remain alive. The cold reminds the soul to live. It is in this enlightenment that the cold becomes better than the warmth. The cold makes a person feel more alive than the warmth can ever do. Perhaps that’s why souls are tortured to eternal fire.
Fire consumes. Fire ravages. Yes, we could remind ourselves that falling into a frozen lake, or anything extreme is not good for any human. And indeed this is true. However, it does not take away from the fact that fire and warmth bring comfort and relaxation, not the exhilaration of being alive. Like drinking a hot cup of tea when it’s cold, the warmth brings comfort and a sense of relaxation. Warmth brings relief to the day-to-day troubles we experience. Warmth is the victory we enjoy after the hard trials that life brings us.
The cold is those trials. The cold are the moments that require us to wake up from the warmth of the bed. The warmth keeps us comfortable, and content with what we already have. The cold is the realisation that we need to work that we have. For insistence, if you go to work in the morning in the brutal cold, the only thing on one’s mind would be to get back into bed. But to keep his bed (his bed being his house, keeping the electricity and so on), he needs to endure the cold.
The only way to endure the cold is to keep moving. Today, snow fell after a long time in Harrismith. It was pretty thick with some sections of snow reaching knee level. There was a point in time whilst I was walking when some snow entered my shoes. Within no time, my socks got pretty wet. Best believe my toes were feeling the cold. At some point, I thought that maybe I should stop walking. But the thought hit me. If I stop walking, what will happen?
If I stopped walking, I would just stand in the snow. My feet would get colder and the rest of my body would get colder as well. At this point, going back home was the best option. And so, I walked back. The first few steps in, the cold had gotten deep into the bones. Each step began to hurt. The only thing on my mind was putting my feet near a heater. However, the more I walked, the less cold my toes felt. My body had found a way to regulate the temperature around my toes and feet. The cold did not feel so bad anymore. So much so that I felt that I could go down another street before heading back home.
That’s the effect of cold. It forces you to move. In that movement, that’s where we find life. In that movement, there’s where we learn more about ourselves and find our limits. Like those taking ice baths, the purpose of the practice is to break down limits that one has placed on themselves. The idea being that the mindset will carry over into other aspects of our lives.
That’s the power of the cold. It’s a feeling of being alive. Warmth would never.
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