Peace in Disaster

 

I love disaster movies.

There's just something reassuring about watching beyond-reasonable, horrific natural events happening to attractive people with perfect hair; all set to melodramatic soundtracks.

While I'm working/writing I have to have noise. Most of the time it's YouTube or Spotify, maybe some formulaic police/medical/fire/legal procedurals on occasion, but some days I just have to indulge in a mini movie marathon. When it comes to movies it has to be movies I've seen before, preferably many times before. I run the risk of getting distracted if it's new movies.

Today's the day to hit up the catharsis porn of disaster movies.

In the order of the day:

• The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
• The Core (2003)
• Volcano (1997)

Look, I'm not depressed. Okay, yeah, I am, but I'm on medication for it and have been for a few years now. What I mean is I'm not MORE depressed. It's not about depression.

It's mostly about light schadenfreude and the entertainment value of catharsis. And catharsis, baby, it ain't no joke. Unless that joke is landed in sarcastic deadpan by Tommy Lee Jones. If that wasn't the case, Hollywood would stop making them and Roland Emmerich would have to retire.

Any given day in America, it's easy to scroll the news and lose yourself in the negativity, the lack of perspective, on offer. But in disaster movies, everyone drops their shit and tackles a singular problem with survival as the only goal. That's nice. It's simple, philosophically. I like that.

Sometimes caring for one's emotional and mental well-being is more about coping and adapting than it is about being proactive. Passive, not active, solutions. Movies are passive. Boom, easy.

I'm a simple guy with simple needs. And sometimes this simple guy needs to watch New York flood and freeze, the core of the earth to stop spinning, and for a volcano to pop up off La Brea Blvd in L.A.

Like some kind of weird existential yoga, many fictional characters will suffer so that I can maintain balance.

And that, too, ain't no joke.