I guess a psychiatrist would say there's some good to the venting

Title: The Poison of Catharsis

Host: The diner was nearly empty, the hour when conversation turns into confession. Fluorescent lights hummed faintly, the color of sleeplessness. A waitress moved silently between booths, her tired face half-hidden behind the rising steam of coffee pots. Outside, the streetlamps flickered through a cold drizzle, casting the wet pavement in dull gold.

At a corner booth, Jack sat with his coat still on, his fingers drumming absently against a chipped mug. Across from him, Jeeny stirred her coffee without sugar, her eyes steady, alert — the kind of gaze that could dissect a sentence the way a surgeon handles a vein.

The air between them hummed with a tension that wasn’t argument yet — but could easily become one.

Jeeny: “Mario Cuomo once said — ‘I guess a psychiatrist would say there’s some good to the venting process, but it does also promote an attitude of saying, “Hey there’s nothing wrong with being filled with hate; there’s so much of it around.” I don’t like that.’”

Jack: (grinning faintly) “Of course he didn’t. Cuomo was an idealist. He thought civilization meant bottling up your rage until it turned into policy.”

Host: His voice carried both sarcasm and exhaustion, like a man tired of his own sharpness.

Jeeny: “Or maybe he just believed hate shouldn’t be normalized. That letting it breathe doesn’t make it go away — it just makes it comfortable.”

Jack: “And what’s wrong with comfort? At least it’s honest. Everyone’s angry, Jeeny. At something. At someone. Pretending otherwise is hypocrisy dressed as civility.”

Jeeny: “There’s a difference between acknowledging hate and feeding it.”

Jack: “Yeah, but repressing it doesn’t kill it either. It just finds new disguises — prejudice, cynicism, power.”

Host: The waitress passed by, refilling their cups. Steam rose between them like a veil of moral ambiguity.

Jeeny: “Maybe the point isn’t to repress it, Jack. It’s to transform it.”

Jack: “Into what? Protest? Art? Religion? Every attempt ends up contaminated by the same poison.”

Jeeny: “That’s because people don’t stay long enough in their discomfort. They either explode or escape. No one sits with it.”

Jack: “Because sitting with hate feels like drowning.”

Jeeny: “But drowning’s the only way to learn you need air.”

Host: Her words were soft, but they landed like stones dropped into water. Jack leaned back, looking at her — not angry, but uncertain.

Jack: “You ever notice how modern life rewards venting? Every tweet, every post, every argument online — it’s all catharsis. Digital screaming. People call it therapy.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Cuomo meant. We’ve confused expression with healing. Just because you scream doesn’t mean you’ve changed.”

Jack: “But silence breeds rot, Jeeny. Look at history — revolutions don’t come from quiet rooms.”

Jeeny: “Revolutions, maybe. But peace does.”

Jack: “Peace is just the pause between explosions.”

Jeeny: “Or the proof we learned something from them.”

Host: The rain outside thickened, running down the window in uneven streams. Their reflections merged in the glass — two silhouettes debating the anatomy of humanity’s darkest muscle.

Jack: “You know what I think? I think hate’s natural. It’s evolution’s defense mechanism. Without it, we’d never fight, never resist, never survive.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Anger’s natural. Hate’s a mutation — a form of anger that’s forgotten what it was supposed to protect.”

Jack: “Maybe it’s not a mutation. Maybe it’s the truth. Every species destroys what threatens it.”

Jeeny: “And what happens when everything starts to feel like a threat?”

Jack: “Then you survive by being the last one left standing.”

Jeeny: “That’s not survival. That’s extinction on a delay.”

Host: Her eyes flashed with quiet conviction. The light caught the rim of her cup, the silver edge gleaming like a blade held steady.

Jeeny: “You talk about hate like it’s fuel. But even fire dies when there’s nothing left to burn.”

Jack: “That’s the point, though. Maybe humanity needs to burn to feel alive.”

Jeeny: “Then you mistake pain for passion.”

Jack: “And you mistake serenity for surrender.”

Jeeny: “I mistake serenity for strength. It takes courage to refuse hatred when everything around you worships it.”

Jack: “You call it courage. I call it denial.”

Host: The neon light from the diner’s sign flickered through the window — “OPEN ALL NIGHT” — the perfect metaphor for their conversation: endless, unresolved, illuminated by the glow of disagreement.

Jeeny: “Look at the world, Jack. People vent online every day — their rage, their resentment, their hate. Has it made us freer? More honest? More human?”

Jack: “It’s made us visible. At least now we know how much poison there is. Before, it hid behind politeness.”

Jeeny: “Visibility isn’t progress if it becomes performance. People perform outrage now like it’s an identity.”

Jack: “So what’s your alternative? Whisper your fury into a pillow?”

Jeeny: “No. Channel it. Into empathy. Into creation. Into correction.”

Jack: (laughs) “Empathy doesn’t trend, Jeeny. Outrage does.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s why it’s rarer — and therefore revolutionary.”

Host: Their voices softened. Not from fatigue, but from recognition — that the chasm between them wasn’t moral, but emotional. Two people searching for different ways to survive the same sickness.

Jack: “You know, Cuomo’s idea feels naive. The world’s too far gone for moral restraint. When everyone’s shouting, whispering feels like surrender.”

Jeeny: “But someone has to start whispering. That’s how the shouting ends.”

Jack: “Or how it gets drowned out.”

Jeeny: “No. How it gets heard again.”

Host: The rain stopped suddenly, as if the sky had run out of tears. The silence outside pressed against the glass, waiting.

Jack: “You ever been angry enough to break something?”

Jeeny: “Yes.”

Jack: “And did you feel better afterward?”

Jeeny: “No. Just empty.”

Jack: “Exactly. That’s why I think venting’s overrated. The world thinks it’s purification, but it’s just release — temporary anesthesia for moral exhaustion.”

Jeeny: “That’s the tragedy. People mistake release for resolution.”

Jack: “So what’s your cure?”

Jeeny: “Understanding. Not agreement — just the effort to understand. That’s rarer than peace.”

Host: The light above their table buzzed, humming softly, the only sound in the still room. The waitress was gone. The coffee had gone cold. The debate had cooled into reflection.

Jeeny: “Cuomo didn’t hate anger. He feared apathy — the moment when hate stops shocking us. When it becomes background noise.”

Jack: “Yeah... that’s when the disease becomes culture.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Hate as habit. Outrage as identity. Venting as entertainment.”

Jack: “And silence as complicity.”

Jeeny: “Only when it’s silence without conscience.”

Jack: “You really think we can unlearn it?”

Jeeny: “Only if we want to be more than our reflexes.”

Host: Outside, the clouds began to part, a faint thread of dawn slipping through — gray-blue and fragile, but undeniably there.

Jack: “You think the world will ever tire of hating?”

Jeeny: “Yes. But only when we learn to grieve what hate costs.”

Jack: “And what’s that?”

Jeeny: “Our reflection. You can’t look at someone with hate and still see yourself clearly.”

Host: He stared at her then — not in defiance, but in weary understanding. For a moment, both of them were silent, the words between them cooling into something softer than argument — recognition.

Host: And as the first thin light of morning crept across the diner floor, Mario Cuomo’s words seemed to echo from somewhere beyond them — part warning, part prayer:

That venting may empty the heart,
but it does not cleanse it.

That to normalize hate is to teach it fluency,
and once fluent, it speaks louder than truth.

That real strength lies not in shouting,
but in refusing to turn bitterness into rhythm.

The light shifted — pale gold on Formica.
The rain had stopped.
And for a rare moment,
the city outside seemed quiet enough
to remember what decency sounded like.