On Kissing and Catharsis

In case you didn't know, I LOVE books.

Even if you did know, I will probably mention this fact over and over and over again, just like that annoying kid in every fast food establishment who is jumping in concentric circles around his parent who is patiently trying to work out why the ice machine at the drink station isn't putting out. (ice - you perv) The kid yells, "Hey, look what I can do! Dad, look what I can do. Daaaad! Watch me! Look what I can do!!!" And then when Dad finally pays attention, the kid does something remarkably ordinary like kicking his leg just high enough to be able to clap his hands underneath it. --Yes. this did actually happen.

(sigh)

Hopefully I'm not that kind of annoying, but I DO love my literature.

Some might say that this is another in a (very long) list of addictions, and some might call me CRAZY when they learn about my reading rotation method or when they see me openly hugging and sometimes kissing books in public places.

I know what you're thinking.

Flagrantly kissing a new book out in the open, where God and all of creation can see, might cast a negative shadow on my otherwise pristinely pure persona. But don't worry. I am extremely responsible and have very strict boundaries on a first reading, especially in public. I only permit a slow amble to first base, allowing (maybe) a little bit of church tongue in the kissing, but only if that book is REALLY something special.*

Anyway.

The point I'm trying to make is that the reason I love my books is because they provide experiences that I wouldn't normally (and sometimes could never) have, and/or I get to meet people (alike and different from me) that I wouldn't get to know otherwise. This is certainly not a new concept --See The Princess Bride (Inconceivable!) and The NeverEnding Story (why don't you do what you dream, Bastian?...Call my name!...Save us!) as film reminders that books absolutely can provide an extraordinary adventure for the reader.

But more than that, good books, like all art (in any medium), provide for the reader an indescribably profound experience that the ancient Greeks called catharsis. [New Latin, from Greek katharsis, from kathairein, to purge, from katharos, pure.]

The word catharsis, according to ye good auld American Heritage Dictionary, is 'a release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit'.

Here's an example:

Do you remember the scene in the movie Garden State where Zach Braff's character climbs in the pouring rain onto the crane that's perched on the edge of a deep, unfathomable abyss? He stands there in his trash bag 'raincoat' and then screams as loudly as he can into the canyon. Then his friends join him on the edge and without any sort of words or exchange, they all three scream into the void. Together.

Though rationally it seems like a silly thing to do, we get that it's the exact RIGHT thing to do in the moment. We recognize/understand (without forming words) what 'that need' to scream into the void is. And we emotionally join the three of them even though obviously, we're not really with them. We're on our comfortable couches and easy loungers in our homes in real places like Dallas, Texas.

But we get it. And we're with them. And afterwards, like them (if we're not still looking for the Kleenex box), we FEEL better.

At the end of the scene the characters laugh, and they kiss. And there is a newness in them, and also a newness in us.

That's catharsis.

And as delicate humans in this chaotically changing world, where we are constantly being bombarded with unfathomable sadness and anguish, we NEED to experience catharsis. We need to experience it often and sometimes with others, so that we can be renewed from the inner secrets of our wounded spirits all the way to the tips of our feverishly working finger tips.

Catharsis is what makes our perception of the world tolerable and more than that, beautiful!

And that's what I get from my beloved books.


*At night in bed is a completely different situation, but I at least TRY to avoid the trashy. After all, we should only have edifying experiences at our most vulnerable..