Catharsis and Desperation

Sexual contact is a human need.

The expression of emotion is a human need.

Sexual need is both physical and psychological.

The need to express emotion can take physical form.

Some sexual need is driven by deeper psychological factors, like the need to bolster self-esteem: the person who "sleeps around, " regardless of propriety or circumstance.

Needing to -- regardless of propriety or circumstance -- express one's feeling to others can be driven by the need to bolster self esteem, too: the person who simply has to say what he or she feels.

In both, there is catharsis of a kind (which is the valid reason for either engaging or expressing): having sex wipes away desire, for a while, at least. "Getting things off of one's chest" can make one feel better, for awhile.

But both approaches can be, depending on the individual, nothing more than a desperate attempt to prove one's worth to one's self (often at the expense of others).

In excess, both actions can erase future interpersonal paths.

Mediocre Stars

For years, people have been complaining that there is too much unwarranted positive affirmation in our society: kids getting trophies just for playing, etc. Of course, this all started with the idea that it is good to give little kids a self-esteem boost...like, the kite can't take flight unless we run with it a little, but then it takes off on its own into the sky. That kind of thing.

If it all works properly, everyone is a "star" for a little and the talented ones sort themselves out from the others as time goes on. I thought it was great that my kids, playing T-ball baseball got little participation trophies. They, like all of the kids, spent the season picking their noses and sitting down in the grass in the middle of an inning and when they were active, they ran from home to third or converged on ground balls in bunches of nine or ten, collided and fell, belly laughing to the ground. The trophies were to say: "See!? You participated and you got something good. Trying gets a reward..." A good thing, I think...as long as it doesn't go on too long.

If it goes on too long (and it does), mediocre people feel entitled to things just because they worked hard. Here, the theories break down. We all know hard work, in and of itself, despite the tears of American Idol audition rejects,  is not rewarded in the real world; results are.

Maybe this is all fun to rant about in terms of principles and in terms of how things used to be "in the old days," but, there is a real danger in all of it, too. It's bad to elevate the mediocre, because as soon as one puts a mediocre person in the stratosphere, that mediocre person is unequipped to deal with it. Only exceptional people can handle exceptional societal elevation.