Catharsis

The newspaper sits across the table from me, and I drink lazily as I watch it be read. I tune out the words being read out loud, lost under my feverish mind. Why should I care? What's the point? Does it affect me at all? Local news, human interest stories. A dog that got eaten by a bear. A baby panda. A man that died at a baseball game.

Mid sip, I realize it's not so much informative as it is a means of sharing stories. Creating sympathy or sadness in readers, tugging at the heart. The Greeks called it catharsis, the purging of emotion. And I suppose, it's the elusive reason as to why I act. To share stories. For sadness, for sympathy, for anger, happiness and relief. It's a tradition hundreds of years old, a basic human need to create and release emotion.