What is a Quarter Life Catharsis anyway?

I'm sure many of you reading this have heard the term "Quarter Life Crisis" or maybe some of you have read the book written by the women first identified the phenomenon. Perhaps you may have even been forced to go to a workshop by those authors in grad school and left early - and later got in trouble for doing so. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, it's time to come out from under that rock you have been hiding under and get with the times. http://www.quarterlifecrisis.com/

Let's start with a simple vocabulary exercise: crisis versus catharsis.

According to the gods of the the Internet, more commonly known as Wikipedia:

Crisis is defined as a traumatic or stressful change in a person's life, or an unstable and dangerous social situation, in political, social, economic, military affairs, or a large-scale environmental event, especially one involving an impending abrupt change.

Sounds scary right. Personally I think every moment of every day of your life could result in a crisis, it's not just some horrific time between the ages of 21-29. But I chose to look at the positive aspect of these years.

Now onto catharsis. Catharsis is actually one of my favorite notions every since I learned about in high school when we were studying Greek theatre.

According to Wikipedia a catharsis is a Greek word meaning "purification" or "cleansing" derived from the ancient Greek infinitive καθαίρειν transliterated as kathairein "to purify, purge," and adjective katharos "pure or clean."

More specifically the term catharsis in drama refers to a sudden emotional climax that evokes overwhelming feelings of great sorrow, pity, laughter or any other extreme change in emotion, resulting in restoration, renewal and revitalization in members of the audience.

And seeing that I am writing about the ups and downs of being in my mid twenties as well as the trends and issues that come with the territory. I think catharsis is a much more fitting way to explain what I'm going through rather than crisis.

I find clarity when I write and that in itself is cathartic.

So
here
goes
nothing!