{"id":111487,"date":"2022-04-21T19:18:08","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T01:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=111487"},"modified":"2022-04-21T19:21:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T01:21:31","slug":"writing-is-it-cathartic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=111487","title":{"rendered":"Writing \u2013 Is It Cathartic?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1545664804358300\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block; text-align: center;\" data-ad-layout=\"in-article\" data-ad-format=\"fluid\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1545664804358300\" data-ad-slot=\"8616314829\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=111487\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=111487\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-111488 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Writing-cathartic-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Writing-cathartic-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Writing-cathartic.jpg 730w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>By Radical Rhymes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Is writing cathartic? I believe it is for many people. They seem to be able to expel rage and despair simply by putting pen to paper or digit to keyboard.<\/p>\n<p>I have numerous friends and acquaintances who keep diaries or journals, and every entry has precise meaning and intense significance.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking for myself, I&#8217;m not sure that writing has those same magical qualities.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>There was a time when I believed that what I wrote mattered. Not so much for my emotional well-being or existential survival, but for other people and society as a whole. As a young academic I so desperately wanted everyone to identify the huge unfairness woven through our systems. If we kept writing and speaking about it, I hoped, then eventually we would be heard.<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t take long for that naivety to dissipate. And perhaps that was a good thing? Partly because it was never going to make a difference, and because there was that narcissistic self-regard sewn into it. Although my narcissism tends towards the negative not the positive.<\/p>\n<p>For a while now I&#8217;ve been writing poetry that I&#8217;ve been sharing through social media. Much of it has personal meaning, and, I hope may have spoken to a few about the need for resilience, but acknowledging all the time that despair looms large.<\/p>\n<p>But&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Most of that writing has been extrinsic. Most of it has been a leaking out of what&#8217;s inside for wider consumption. Most of it.<\/p>\n<p>However, today I wrote this:<\/p>\n<p>Rooms<\/p>\n<p>They stranded me inside their rooms,<\/p>\n<p>And those became my waking tombs.<\/p>\n<p>No freedom without wrenching fear,<\/p>\n<p>The terror grasping, ever near.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t escape, I know that now<\/p>\n<p>And where would I go anyhow?<\/p>\n<p>These rooms endure until the end,<\/p>\n<p>I have no faith, so why pretend?<\/p>\n<p>This HAS been cathartic. It speaks to the walls that have penned me in my whole life, and of the horrors that exist beyond them. This is a release of sorts and now I need to find the peace that awaits me.<\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t be writing any more.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808000;\"><em><strong>Radical Rhymes is a professional artist working with a range of media &#8211; predominantly animal\/human portraits and landscapes &#8211; including, most recently, hand painted furniture. You can see his work on Instagram Radicalrhymes1969 or on Twitter <a style=\"color: #808000;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RhymesRadical\">@RhymesRadical.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808000;\"><em><strong>For commissions, please contact him on Twitter via Direct Message or by email at: radicalrhymes@outlook.com His work is also available to buy on <a style=\"color: #808000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/uk\/shop\/RadicalRhymes?ref=search_shop_redirect\">Etsy<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Radical Rhymes Is writing cathartic? I believe it is for many people. They seem to be able to expel rage and despair simply by putting pen to paper or digit to keyboard. I have numerous friends and acquaintances who keep diaries or journals, and every entry has precise meaning and intense significance. Speaking for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":111488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28617],"class_list":["post-111487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-writing-is-it-cathartic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111487"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}