yesterday i got upset for many reasons so i tried my first therapeutic technique which is cooking, specifically baking and i baked a yummy carrot cake with the cream cheese frosting too and i thought it worked. today i discovered that it didn't work so my plan B was some catharsis on my blog and since English is not my mother tongue i googled the word, hens the above picture and found this too on wikipedia:
Catharsis (from the Greek katharsis meaning "purification" or "cleansing") refers to the purification and purgation of emotions-especially pity and fear-through art or to any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. It is a metaphor originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of tragedy on the spectator
my first encounter with the word was through Gilmore Girls so i kind of knew what it meant but still i had to check before using it, and here are the bits that i found relevant: this word is related to theater (and what are blogs other than a stage and audience), expression of emotions (and what am i other than a mass of feelings entangled like a ball of thread the cat left by the fire place), and art (and what is writing if not a creation of beauty from the mind of the "bethinker")
still i felt that my blog is letting me down, i can't say what i wanted to say and i won't hear what i need to hear. during days of similar sadness i try to use THE TICKET... if i haven't told you about THE TICKET yet here is a brief explanation:
the logic behind it is similar to a medical treatment that uses a greater amount of pain for the relief of the original less acute pain, and to my surprise i found that "catharsis" in the sense of dramatic art uses tragedy on the audience to make them feel better after the shock. so what i call THE TICKET (and i've created and used this term long before i knew all of this) is simply a sequence of thoughts that i force on my mind which are much worse than my condition, for example i think of people with certain disabilities in order to thank God for my situation, now i read about mothers who struggle like this amazing woman and realize how blessed i am and how lala-land-like my life is compared to these people, the tragedy might not be directly related to the reason of my sadness but the technique works
recently, THE TICKET has become SYRIA... whenever i feel down or tired or in need to complain about how difficult life is, i use THE SYRIA TICKET... i start thinking about how people are suffering from war there, specifically mothers of young children and this automatically makes me endlessly grateful for all that i have, including the very reason of my sadness
i don't know if this is a healthy or mature technique but at least it works for me, i don't have any close friends living nearby whom i can call for some catharsis over the phone time, and what i mean by close friends, friends who know me well, they don't think too highly of me making me scared of disappointing them, they also aren't skeptical of my motives making me feel that i'm gossiping or talking behind people's backs. so if i have no one to turn to for an "emergency catharsis" phone call or coffee and if i'm still too afraid to go into details or get personal on my blog (which is supposed to be my virtual friend) then why not use THE TICKET and make it as flexible as need be... i update it and upgrade it whenever i hear a real-life story or news that includes death, loss, illness, disability, poverty, struggles, challenges... you name it
who needs a friend when one has a blog, a cute mug of great coffee, and THE TICKET... oh, i shouldn't forget to mention the piece of me-made carrot cake i've just had... it all works, surprisingly enough, but i still long, deep down inside, for a friend, a real one made of flesh and blood and mistakes and business and ideas and tears and laughs and talents and shortcomings and perfection and imperfection.... then i can share my coffee with her, laugh about my last blog post with her, pray about the war in Syria with her, and talk about what was upsetting me in the first place, and have some real one-on-one non-virtual catharsis time with her.
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