Is there Science behind Destruction?

36 years ago, in 1984 a movie took the world by storm. With a budget of just 8 million dollars the movies grossed 100 million globally and yet hasn’t stopped. New movie sequels, T.V series and animated shows are being added to the same franchise of THE KARATE KID.

This movie proved that it’s never a budget but the concept that sells a story.

For those who haven’t watched it yet, it’s a story of a kid who learns karate from a learned sensei to defend himself from a school bully. The sensei who is not just physically but mentally and most important morally strong leads the boy to the victory. 

But this article is not about that movie and neither about the moral high ground leading protagonist to win.
This article is about the antagonist.
What went in his mind? Why he choose to beat up the protagonist in the first. Was it only because his moral compass was broken or there’s some science behind this. 

And by end of this article you would know what the exact reason for that.

Theory of Catharsis.

In Greek katharsis meaning "purification" or “cleansing” particularly pity, fear and frustration — through art or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration.

Imagine your mind getting dirty and its natural instinct is to clean itself up. But it’s got a choice to clean it with taking out the energy either in a productive form or destructive. Whatever you choose will be your way of purification.

Our brain is composed of conscious and subconscious mind. Surprising number but 95% of our brain functions on subconscious mind, the mind which keep track of nothing physical but everything emotional. 

The Theory works in two stages 

Process of build-up.

One hears a story of how scary heights are and starts fearing them.

One gets bullied and forever fears someone more powerful than him.

One gets a bad incident with dog and fear them rest of their lives.

Venting out In productive way

If you fear height then watch a sky divers Vlog. After he lands on ground falling meters and meters above the sky you will find nothing but happiness on his face.

If you fear someone more powerful then watch a movie with same circumstances and when the hero wins he will leave you with a smile and motivation for few days. 

If you fear dogs then spend a day with a dog lover and his kids (dogs). That will not only take away your fear but will also make you realize what a beautiful relation and human and animal can share.

One can face his fears directly by facing them or with other means like any physical art example karate, boxing and etc. It will remove fear permanently. This purification of removing fear, frustration from our heads is therapy of catharsis.

Sigmund Freud's colleague Josef Breuer who was the first to use the term to describe a therapeutic technique.1
Breuer developed what he referred to as a "cathartic" treatment for hysteria.

His treatment involved having patients recall traumatic experiences while under hypnosis. By consciously expressing emotions that had been long repressed, Breuer found that his patients experienced relief from their symptoms.

All in all this therapy works but only if you are aware of it in a way it should be used.

Sensei of protagonist in the movie said “balance should be maintained”. The world is created in such a way that balance exists inevitably. To balance with the positive aspects of this therapy there are few negative ones too. This process is a double edge sword if aware it can help you if done with an unaware mind it will harm you as you vent out energy in destructive way.

Venting out in Destructive way

Have you ever held a bubble wrap in your hand and not burst a single bubble.

The answer is straight NO in capitals.

But why is it what happens as soon as the bubble wrap touches our hand the first thing our mind tells us to do is burst it?. It is because that bursting is an action of venting out energy. Our naturally build frustration in subconscious mind gets pleasure after bursting bubble or anything oddly satisfying yet unknowingly destructive.

But this satisfaction comes with a prices. 

Now look at bubble wrap as the protagonist of the karate kid and you are antagonist bursting bubbles to vent out our frustration. 

The pleasure is not a product of actual happy hormones (Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Endorphins). This activity releases cortisol (aka Stress hormones) which is harmful for our body if we look at complete lifespan of a human.

Release of cortisol is like smoking you start with few in the stating but as time passes your mind desires for more and thus the real violence comes out (the violence here referred is not just physical but verbal too)

Your head gets satisfied with one hard hit on your siblings back or harsh words in the first fight but as time passes our head demands more punches or severe harsh words in further fights which is technically asking for cortisol to be secreted more.

Experimental proof

Michael David Stevens a Youtuber and host to show Mind field. In season 1 episode 3 of the show the host creates a fictional racist character and made his personality to be evoking hatred in front of his subjects. 

He then allowed half of his subjects to vent out their anger by destroying some properties and half of them were made just sit.

It was observed that people who sat without doing anything tend to forgive the fictional racist character and all those who went on destroying prop for venting out their anger became angrier and violent in their behavior towards that fictional guy and wanted to hurt him more even after they did destroy properties to vent out their anger.

It was because once they started destroying properties they secreted cortisol and later their head demanded more making them angrier and violent.

 

And that’s what our generation is doing wrong instead of channelizing our energy in the right productive direction we tend to be more destructive. We used our speech more in using harsh word rather than being kind to people. We use our power in beating up people instead of focusing to be more productive.

Solutions to negative aspects of Catharsis. 

Talking: - talking about your bad day to friends is the most effective way to vent out frustration without any release of cortisol

Observing and producing art: - listening to music, painting and etc are ways to tackle this

Mental and physical exercises: - you train your head to stop releasing cortisol it won’t and that can be done with this.

Right now we are living in a world full of fears and stress if we don’t channelize our energies it properly today it will affect our subconscious mind eventually harming us.

The more we use violence be it physical or verbal our brain demands more and just like smoking you get addicted to it and this might ruin your life just like it did to the antagonist in the movie. 

In spite of having great skill and talent he loses because he uses this therapy with an unaware mind and wrong intension.

Catharsis: - Purification is certain it’s on us whether we want it to be in a productive way or destructive way 

Author                                  Piyush Janbandhu 

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