The Literate Kitty

Words can have multiple meanings, and sometimes, the differences are subtle. Take “exhaustion”. We hear the word, and tend to picture a body utterly worn out by some sort of grueling physical activity, such as that of a workman who pounds nails into roof shingles for a living, after spending eight hours in the blazing July sun, or maybe a triathlete at the end of his/her race. Exhaustion doesn’t manifest itself solely in the physical sense, though. Emotional exhaustion--that hollowed-out feeling which follows a period of intense grieving, for instance--can leave the body feeling just as fatigued as physical activity, and the same is true for mental exhaustion--such as when a person has thought long and hard about every aspect of a seemingly-insurmountable problem, in the fruitless search for a solution. Any one of them--or a combination thereof--can lead to burn-out, that state of being completely fed up--with a job, a relationship, a situation... or with life itself. A dangerous thin...