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Genuine catharsis requires the emotions of shame, dread, fear, puzzlement, and even hopelessness. Anything less is too superficial. The avoidance of these feelings, which beg for attention, makes people numb and foggy and therefore incapable of the necessary empathy. The poet Wallace Stevens said that the death of one god is the death of them all. This applies to emotions as well. Suppress the uncomfortable ones, and the others will go into hiding, too.
-- Thomas Moore
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