It’s the emotion of stagnation, and by stagnation I mean a truly static sense of consistency. Even the process of dying and breaking back into your base chemical components marks some level of progression, of change and development, and precludes the level of futility I speak of. Most days of your life are spent with the realize that the end game of both the best and worst case scenarios is the same, namely that sooner or later you will die.

The day this occurs is a cold one, the first cold day without an excuse. The sun is shining, no rain or ice is falling, it’s mid afternoon and while there are a few clouds, they aren’t enough to warrant the frigid temperature. There is no wind. It’s often a Sunday, marked by a lack of activity. The trees are still and bare, the streets unusually barren, sound is muted and color faded. You are bored but unable to motivate yourself. At first you scrounge for stimulus, retreating to a friend’s house in hopes of sparking animation through collective effort, but instead your conversation is stunted and faulting. You attempt to break away from the dour introspection you’re involved in, but are left unable to focus on the outside world as more than a reminder of your sorry state.

Most people find their lives acceptable based on one fact; the possibility of improvement, or at least change. Any flaw, either in self or surroundings, is acceptable so long as we realize that change is inevitable and that this, too, shall pass. What then, on that one day when suddenly change seems so unlikely that no further progress in any direction, even death, can be made?

Suddenly, the errors fly into sharp contrast, taking up the foreground of our lives, but without recourse or solution. The same cold that dulls our senses also freezes us in place, suddenly locking us into a world where it’s as good as it gets now, with all of the unfinished business immortalized, every unspoken word left uncommunicated, every project abandoned, but left cluttering up the tables and garages, every path now merely a patch of dirt we scuff around, staring morosely off into the distance, looking at a bleak, thinly lit sky that hides behind it some sunlit beach now forever beyond our reach.

In this moment, we feel the weight of entropy, the realization that energy isn’t actually circular, it’s waning. You don’t so much die as just run out of energy one day, and on that bitter October afternoon, you’ve reached that zero point, with only enough leftover juice to keep your mind on ‘retrospective’.

And there’s no excuse for it, no reason beyond the sense that comes from watching another year cycle end, watching everything go to ground. Another day, you don’t even notice. Life’s back to normal. Some part of the routine, work, television, whatever, snaps you back into your normal pattern and mindset. Sometimes I think the feeling is the residual effect of a time when winter probably spelled the deaths for most of us.

But part of it lingers, too, and follows us around until spring, and throughout the winter, the idea that this is it, that life doesn’t go anywhere after this, that we are forever lost in obscure mediocrity, clouds our judgment and taints our behavior. Life goes on, but sometimes our minds aren’t able to follow, and for three gray and lonely months, part of us looks forever back and laments all of our unfulfilled dreams, now nothing more than sad entries in poorly written journals.