Finding Comfort in a Story I Already Know - Catlynh Phan 12/05

 I read a piece about why so many people keep re-watching their favorite TV shows over and over and how it actually helps when life feels messy or overwhelming. Experts say that familiar shows give you comfort because you know how the story ends and you know how it will make you feel. When I re-watch a show I love instead of starting a brand-new series, it feels like a little break from chaos. I’m not trying to adjust to new plots or strange characters. Instead, I slip back into a world that feels safe. In that moment, I’m not chasing novelty. I am just breathing. Sometimes after a long day of classes, work, or stress, that calm is exactly what I need.

This idea connects deeply to what we study in class. Our course talks about pilgrimage not only as grand journeys but as a series of small steps and moments of presence. Re-watching a show becomes its own kind of personal ritual. It gives me a chance to reflect. It gives me consistency, especially when my own life feels unpredictable. Revisiting the same story reminds me that even when everything around me changes, some parts stay constant. That consistency helps me feel grounded. It shows me that meaning does not have to come from big events. Sometimes it comes from coming home to something familiar, whether it is a trail, a text, or a TV show.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Collective Unconscious and the Importance of Ego (Serial Experiments: Lain) - Carter Jobe

I just finished watching the short series Serial Experiments: Lain and was inspired to write this blog about the many spiritual inuendos that touched me throughout this experience, along with elements I found relevant to this class. There is an underlying element of the Jungian collective unconscious throughout the show, and it is represented by the Wired, a mix between the internet, a higher reality like a heaven, and a connection between all people and the world around them. The antagonist, "God", aims to deplete everyone's ego and superego along with their bodies, diminishing everyone into a digitized version of the collective unconscious. Humanity would become one, and there would be no sin or differences. Certain characters throughout the show commit themselves to this idea and rid themselves of their burdens to become a part of the wired.  Lain herself is compelled to do the same at one point. In the climax of the show, Lain claims that we don't need our bodies,...
Read more

Kip Redick Example Post

  Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds, movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.” It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into mere words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of. Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experienc...
Read more

Dante's Inferno, a pilgrimage through hell

 Dante Alighieri was a prolific author of the 13th century. He wrote many pieces, but one that he is most well known for is his book Inferno. This book follows Dante as he travels through the seven rings of hell, he is guided by his now dead mentor Virgil. This book was the first piece of media from this time period to really explore the idea of what hell would entail. Each ring is split into level of sin, it starts with purgatory, an eternal waiting room for people who are between heaven and hell. The first ring is the tamest, with the least appalling of the eternal punishments. The last ring is for only the most atrocious of sinners and hold the worst punishments.     Dante travels through hell as a living man, so he has no fear of being tortured  as he journeys deeper into the pit of mans greatest threats. Dante begins cautious but excited, he has been given an opportunity of a life time, to document such a prolific place that is so deeply rooted in the core of so...
Read more