Violent Catharsis
Ever been so inexplicably frustrated that you start imagining violent acts of torture, murder, and destruction unfold around you? Thankfully, my fear that this kind of reckless abandon was unique to me (which may therefore inspire me to question my sanity) was acknowledged and sympathized wih by a friend. She was feeling the same way in school today. She was in the lunch room and for some reason (perhaps a build up of menial quandaries) wanted to tear everything surrounding her apart. She felt like physically hurting people without legitimate motive. She felt like overturning the cafeteria table and launching her lunch tray into a glass window. She felt like stabbing her teacher in the eyes with a pencil and strangling a peer to death with her own hands.
I can relate to that.
I'm sure now that everyone can. It's just the impassioned need to release negative energy on something beautiful and living. No explanation, just unadulterated catharsis. The question is, what good will that solve? Maybe a lot.
It's the feeling you get when you scream your vocal chords to numbness into a pillow. It's some satisfaction. Perhaps only visceral, but it's something. Is aimless violence really the antithesis of crying your heart out? I'm sure one feels empowered after a night of therapeutic rampage, but in the end one feels just as healed as one would after a good two hours of bawling about anythign and everything. I guess the defining line is empowerment. To take something away from something or someone else, to make someone feel what it is you're feeling. After tears I only feel slightly better, and most times I feel worse. I've never reacted violently to a feeling of grief, or frustration, or even anger for that matter. Maybe I should, every once in while. Let it out on a wall or a mattress or something. There's somehow a need to please the beast in me. We still are beasts, beasts with intellect, but beasts nonetheless. What's insanity for that matter?
Am I serious? I need a hot bath and a cup of cocoa. Maybe some whipped cream. A stuffed animal, perhaps?
I can relate to that.
I'm sure now that everyone can. It's just the impassioned need to release negative energy on something beautiful and living. No explanation, just unadulterated catharsis. The question is, what good will that solve? Maybe a lot.
It's the feeling you get when you scream your vocal chords to numbness into a pillow. It's some satisfaction. Perhaps only visceral, but it's something. Is aimless violence really the antithesis of crying your heart out? I'm sure one feels empowered after a night of therapeutic rampage, but in the end one feels just as healed as one would after a good two hours of bawling about anythign and everything. I guess the defining line is empowerment. To take something away from something or someone else, to make someone feel what it is you're feeling. After tears I only feel slightly better, and most times I feel worse. I've never reacted violently to a feeling of grief, or frustration, or even anger for that matter. Maybe I should, every once in while. Let it out on a wall or a mattress or something. There's somehow a need to please the beast in me. We still are beasts, beasts with intellect, but beasts nonetheless. What's insanity for that matter?
Am I serious? I need a hot bath and a cup of cocoa. Maybe some whipped cream. A stuffed animal, perhaps?