Posts tagged writing
So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.
Catharsis.
The second derivative of the Greek word katharos, clean. The purging, the cleansing, the expunging of pent-up negativity within oneself. It’s among a select few concepts recognized and regarded with esteem by artists, authors, philosophers and psychiatrists alike.
Aristotle was the first to connote the term with its contemporary associations, the vast spectrum of human emotion. He defined it as the “purging of the spirit of morbid and base ideas or emotions by witnessing the playing out of such emotions or ideas on stage.”
Two millennia later, Joseph Breuer, the mentor and close friend of Sigmund Freud, associated catharsis with one of his patients, Anna. She exhibited dozens of unexplainable symptoms, ones Dr. Breuer could only attribute to hysteria. The refusal to eat and drink, being unable to speak in her native tongue, but being able to speak English perfectly fine, even becoming mute at one point. Anna would get lost within trance-like states, hypnosis without…hypnosis, if you will. During these episodes, she’d be able to form coherent thoughts and convey them to Dr. Breuer without fail. On one occasion she recalled seeing a woman drink from a glass of water immediately after a dog took a sip from it. She was consumed by sentiments of disgust and persevering putridity, but found herself drinking water shortly after. Dr. Breuer attributed her positive change in behavior to the identification of its inhibitory roots and in turn, a profound emotional response. Catharsis in contemporary psychotherapy.
One of my best friends described feelings of anxiety to me earlier and it reminded me of myself a few years back. Having too much on my plate, dealing with contingencies which arose in the personal sphere of my life, and exhibiting bizarre, unexplainable symptoms physically which impeded my daily routine were its stimuli. I sought refuge in books, in music, medical research and eventually running.
The beauty of it lies in its idiosyncratic nature. What may be catharsis for you might be pointless to me, and vice versa. Some find it in running, some in music, others in writing, reading, weight lifting, driving, biking, even working. When you do find what works for you, you’ll know.
Witnessing a few of my close friends and my mother crumble over the past year hit home hard, and I promised myself I’d never allow it to recur within anyone I hold dear. Knowing that I have a significant voice on my blog, I felt it was imperative that I posted this. So for all of you with accrued stress, pain and anguish, don’t take the easy way out and simply give up. Find your catharsis, find your release, and let everything out. You’ll thank yourselves later.
Alive.
By the second grade, when asked to define a word, students are expected to refrain from reiterating it in their explanations. Most fail initially, but eventually they catch on. After all, how are you to elucidate on its meaning to someone completely oblivious of it, by simply restating the word? That’s like trying to explain the beauty of The Mona Lisa to the congenitally blind.
But we all fall victim to it at some point. Especially when pondering the conceptual. Even the dictionary can’t compete eventually.
Take the word alive, for example. Open any collection of definitions and you’ll find something along the lines of “having life”, “full of life”, “the state of living”, and my personal favorite, “being alive”.
But what does that mean? Is merely being in possession of all necessary vital functions indicative of being alive? Is existing implicative of living? Is human life equatable to that of a sea sponge?
That’s where the lexicon fails.
“Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.”
— E. E. Cummings
Mr. Edward Estin Cummings had it right. God rest his soul.
Solipsist
You are beautiful like demolition. Just the thought of you draws my knuckles white. I don’t need a god. I have you and your beautiful mouth, your hands holding onto me, the nails leaving unfelt wounds, your hot breath on my neck. The taste of your saliva. The darkness is ours. The nights belong to us. Everything we do is secret. Nothing we do will ever be understood; we will be feared and kept well away from. It will be the stuff of legend, endless discussion and limitless inspiration for the brave of heart. It’s you and me in this room, on this floor. Beyond life, beyond morality. We are gleaming animals painted in moonlit sweat glow. Our eyes turn to jewels and everything we do is an example of spontaneous perfection. I have been waiting all my life to be with you. My heart slams against my ribs when I think of the slaughtered nights I spent all over the world waiting to feel your touch. The time I annihilated while I waited like a man doing a life sentence. Now you’re here and everything we touch explodes, bursts into bloom or burns to ash. History atomizes and negates itself with our every shared breath. I need you like life needs life. I want you bad like a natural disaster. You are all I see. You are the only one I want to know.
You’re drowning, sinking, the waters impeding your vocal chords, flooding into your thoughts and penetrating into your pores. Your futile screams cannot be heard by the ears of mankind. Muffled by your surroundings, gasping for air, you are dragged into absolute hell by a creature that lives inside of you.
Fragments #138
Ah, broken friendships, relationships… There’s one I never want to see again, two I don’t need to see again; there’s one I can accept never seeing again, and a last one … the only one I truly wish I could fix, need to fix. Too many loose ends.
Strategy of Numbers, a novel by Clint Irwin, get it here or on amazon
Neclegentia
I now see why it is admonished that one consults the advise of a trusting, unbiased, uninvolved party before making an investment. Expenditure of any nature always accompanies inherent risk, and on occasion even the most prescient will fall to their knees at contingencies they failed to foresee. And at the very worst — pardon the perceptible, condone the conspicuous, discount the discernible, and overlook the obtrusive. To sit still as the salient slips you by is to salute sorrow, sanction suffering, and welcome wounds. To be apathetic — holding inadvertence in lieu of interest — is to accept affliction.
Negligence complements consequence; perpetual inescapableness with no comprehensible cure. It consumes you — you assume the likeness of your own nemesis; it becomes your kismet.
Where does that leave you?
Papers should never approach 5000 words.
Never.
I’ll get back to everyone as soon as this is done, granted carpal tunnel syndrome doesn’t spontaneously ensue before then.
