Meta-thoughts on Catharsis

I was caught out this week at work when Johnny Cash’s cover of NIN’s ‘Hurt’ came on whilst I was innocently listening to Kerrang! Radio and, of course, bouncing about at my desk bobbing my head like a demented string puppet, or a Bobblehead.

This practice of occasionally very quietly Rawking Out at my desk is sometimes the only thing that can keep me from repeatedly smacking my forehead against the desk and is generally performed during about hour 72 of a particularly frustrating spread sheet and has so far stopped any Falling Down-esque Michael Douglas moments:

“What about the brief case? You forgot the brief case! I'm going home! So clear a path, you mother****s! Clear a path! I'M GOING HOME!”

Anyway, I was wading through a pile of stuff which I can’t be bothered to explain as I am sure you really don’t want to know (I want you, dear reader, to keep reading and not fall into a coma) until the first bars of the song started up and I had to stop what I was doing and stare into the middle distance. Only seconds before, I was merrily nodding and jiving (albeit in a small, please don’t notice or comment on me way) and tippy-tappying on the old keyboard but the moment the song started I froze. I stared into space for those four or so minutes and let the sadness of the song build up, whilst having all kinds of meta-thought about the cathartic nature of sadness and how music can be a fantastic catalyst for this process.

You can be happy as the proverbial clam, pootling along within the confines of your day then suddenly- whammo – the likes of Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley will appear and you are transformed into some pale, consumptive version of yourself, musing on the bleakness of existence and the darkness of your own soulscape or some other emo lyric. If the wind changes and you stay that way, your only hope is to dye your hair black, get a blind man with severe DTs to crop aforementioned hair, develop a strong hatred for the colour pink and complain a lot about how everything sucks: maybe you’ll be famous one day.

For those of you who, after a period of time, come out the other side of your funk you will notice that the day is brighter and that things are ok. This, we are told is the cathartic process in effect and apparently it is good for you.

A Google search on the term catharsis gives some interesting definitions:

• an American hardcore punk band, associated with "Holy Terror", a phenomenon commonly regarded as a form of apocalyptic metallic hardcore that was breeding during the mid-'90s.
• a Russian power metal band who originally played doom metal, but have since develop their style to symphonic metal.

Ok, I have no idea what apocalyptic metallic hardcore, doom metal or symphonic metal is, but my lack of understanding of the increasingly complex naming conventions in the music world aside, I am guessing that these bands both chose to brand their various caterwauling efforts with the name Catharsis because of the general meaning of the Greek word (κάθαρσις) meaning "cleansing" or "purging".

Catharsis can happen in many different ways. Aristotle talks about it taking place in a play when it occurs for one or more of its characters, as well as being part of the audience’s experience. It describes an extreme change in emotion, occurring as the result of experiencing strong feelings, such as sorrow, fear, pity, or even laughter. (Poetics, 1449b25f, via Wikipedia)

This should not, however be used as an excuse for watching any old tripe – “but mum, it’s cathartic for me to watch this trash, I’ll finish pondering on the emptiness of my existence for 5 more minutes and then get back to cleaning my bedroom” – watching Eastenders on Christmas Day just to see who bumps off whom, and who ends up in tears is merely schadenfreude (a wonderful, wonderful thing, by the way, but not catharsis) and there is no excuse for watching Hollyoaks ever.

Catharsis makes us feel better and, I infer, less likely to kick the dog, spouse or inanimate object in our houses. So save your toe bones and next time you hear that song, watch that film or read that book go on, have a good old cathartic moment. Wallow. Indulge! Help yourself!

But please make sure you have a friend with a prodding stick on standby, just in case the wind changes.

Luxury goods for luxury people

My local Tesco Express has turned into a weirdly inverted communist Russia. I don’t know if it is something to do with increased fuel prices (not quite as expensive as beer, but jolly nearly), but the shelves are bizarrely empty.  They are just not filling them up as regularly.  The average shopping bonanza has the echoes of customers’ footsteps bouncing round the two or three items huddling in the middle of the shelf like a bread-based Hansel and Gretel, and clucks of dismay from the somewhat underwhelmed shoppers filling the air.

There are no signs that the shop is closing down, despite the ‘everything must go’ vibe about the place, but it is increasingly resembling the unfair stereotype of a little shop in communist Russia with a huge number of people queuing for the three potatoes that are on sale.  This situation differs from the stereotype, however, by dint of the goods themselves are not what you would expect: the products available for purchase tend to be the premium and branded items, the cheaper value own brands having long gone.  Whether this is due to inflation, VAT increases or heightened customer caution is immaterial: I simply find it annoying that my range of purchase options is so restricted.  Obviously this isn’t a problem for most things as one can simply go to another shop or wait for a new deliver of stuff but sometimes you are not in the position to do so and you are forced to take what’s on offer.

This rather unfortunate circumstance happened to me this week when, as a part of a last minute Sunday evening shop, I really needed to buy toilet paper.  We were down to the last two sheets so waiting was, quite frankly, not an option.  I dashed down the aisle to the relevant section and made my purchase choice.  The purchase decision that was forced upon me was one that I truly resent and resulted in much mutterage and teeth grindage, as I was forced to buy expensive designer paper which has been infused with stuff to make it more expensive.

Now I find this abhorrent and have done ever since toilet paper companies started churning out quilted, super duper double thickness in any colour to match your suite.  As far as I’m concerned, that provided it is not that nasty institutional tracing paper of the past (zero absorbency, one hundred percent useless, unless required for actual tracing things) the regular white, probably from recycled material as we are kind to the environment these days paper is perfectly acceptable and we don’t really need anything more whizzy for it to fulfil its function.  We don’t need triple quilted softness or whatever and I don’t care about its aesthetics as I will be throwing down the loo, not putting it on the walls.  But that’s just me and I have watched these terrible developments over the years from afar, tsking and shaking my head when I heard about the pre-soggied paper which seem to be a bit like facewipes for removing makeup but not really.  I rolled my eyes when they infused the paper with aloe vera for a more sensitive approach to one’s bottom and I spluttered in outrage at the launch of a certain company’s “most luxurious toilet tissue ever” – basically bog roll with added shea butter.

The writers of awesome copy on their web site tells us:

“Offering a multi-sensory experience, this luxurious new toilet tissue has some new and exclusive features that will make you feel truly fabulous. Each sheet is gently enriched with Shea Butter lotion, the central core is scented with a light Shea Butter fragrance and the pack is a deep, rich luxurious brown colour, matching any contemporary bathroom design.”

A multi-sensory experience? What on earth can that possibly mean? I cannot say it enough times, this is toilet roll not a lifestyle choice.  Anyway, rant aside, I had to pick up a bag of this wonder product and it is now in the house. 

I’m not sure how fitting the packaging is with my not very contemporary bathroom - that is for guests to comment on as they are edging out of the building as I follow them, screeching “But what about the toilet paper, eh?  What about the toilet paper?  You did look at the bag, didn’t you? You didn’t? Get back up there this instant!”

The paper feels weird - like when you have hand washed a glass but a small smear of grease as somehow got on in the pile of dirty plates and it feels, well, not right and a bit slippery.  They certainly have bunged in lots of fragrance: it is really strong and attaches itself to your hands, so you find yourselves suspiciously washing your hands twice to make absolutely certain all traces of the stuff have gone, but perhaps this will revolutionise my world and I shall be forced to eat my own words.

Perhaps I will have the face of a thirty-something but be sporting the butt of a much younger model.  Maybe I’ve just invented a new product – Anti Ageing Toilet Paper, infused with AHAs and other dark wizardry created by makeup companies, exclusively for the woman who has so little in her life she has to worry about ageing bottoms. I don’t think the scaremongering magazines have even thought of ageing bottoms as being a problem yet!

I’ll make a fortune!

On happiness

It’s something that everybody wants, apart from tortured artists, EMOs and attention-seeking teens. Everyone has an opinion on what it consists of and a not inconsiderable number of snake oil sellers employ their smoke and mirrors to convince willing idiots to part with large sums of money in order to gain access to the secrets, the rites and the rituals necessary to get it.

A one-word entry into Amazon garners 142001 results in the book section alone and there is even a whole department devoted to it – not that I blame Amazon one bit: it’s not its fault that so many books on this subject are written and bought. What is that word? What is the one thing that would give so many hits on Amazon in one section? Robert Pattinson gets 2071 hits across 16 departments including Beauty (!) and Office Products, and Brad Pitt tops out at 4867, so what one thing would beat these two hands down? Happiness, that’s what.

Titles on offer for today’s willing supplicant at the Temple of Happiness include:

• Happiness: A guide to developing life’s most important skill
• The How of Happiness
• Happiness: unlocking the mysteries of psychological wealth

Not having read these tomes, I cannot possibly comment on their quality critically or evaluate their usefulness but the titles of some I found on the website (I give you ‘Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way’ and ‘Happiness Now!: Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good FAST’) make me want to lobby for all such books to be legally required to print the following disclaimer across the cover:

This book and its contents may not been evaluated by anyone with actual scientific qualifications or by any governing body of actual people and brain experts. This product may not be intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any form of mental disequilibrium and should not be treated as such. No refunds.

One hopes that such warnings would dissuade people from making an unwise purchase that could lead to addiction but, veiled references to cigarette boxes aside, what concerns me more is this overwhelming sense of a universal dissatisfaction with life.

If you Google the phrase “why am I unhappy?” you get a seemingly endless stream of the poor me’s wailing on about how he or she has got everything, has achieved everything, is a superstar with a super-hot other half, who has become the MD of his or her own company before the age of 25 and, in a nutshell, has everything he or she could ever possibly want but is still dissatisfied and do not feel happy. Further investigation will show that this is a recurring theme and, I suspect, the catalyst for a good percentage of the 142001 books the internet offered me.

Now, actual misery and depression is a serious matter and need support and understanding, but surely this extended navel gazery is not good for us? Should we be spending our time worrying that we are not deliriously and insanely happy every waking second of the day? Is it healthy or even desirable to be permanently giddy with incredulous pleasure at the sheer fabulousness of our lives? How did we become so pre-occupied with our own internal happiness barometers? How do we find the time?

Why should we demand to live our lives, exceeding every joyful expectation on a moment-by-moment and feeling like hideous failures if we find ourselves at any point living in a state that is anything less than a constant delirium of awesomeness? Who the hell do we think we are?

We’re not all going to be rich, we’re not going to be film stars and yes, sometimes life isn’t fair.

As a good friend once said:

Life sucks: get a helmet.