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veen  ·  4081 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Allow yourself to be alone and sad every once in a while

I travel by train twice a week, which means a 40 minute ride devoid of internet. Most of the time I have an episode of Radiolab to listen to, but often I'll just stare out of the window, listening to music and reflecting on my life in general.

For me, it's katharsis in it's original meaning: the cleansing of emotions. In old Greece, people didn't watch the tragedies as we do now. The crowd was wild, rooting for the good guy in a fight, crying in a sad scene. It was a virtue to keep your emotions to yourself in the society, but those emotions have to go somewhere, so your emotional mind was cleansed during the tragedies.

I criticize myself in those moments in the train. If I don't have those moments of reflection, I usually end up reflecting on my life when I'm in bed trying to sleep. Sadly, I don't think I'm the person for something like meditation, because it's impossible for me to clear my mind completely. But this is the closest I've got and it seems sufficient.