Katabasis

"The feeling that the music or the novel engenders - a feeling of appreciation for small acts of kindness - may be termed katabasis, a going down. It is worth dignifying it with a special name because, although generally unremarked, it is one of the most significant and valuable movements of consciouness that art can achieve. It is a counterpart of the famous notion of the sublime, in which we come to an ecstatic self-awareness. In the moment of katabasis we come down from the ordinary plateau of indifference, we recognise the dark background of existence - its loneliness, disapointment, fragility - and from here we see clearly just how much we need (like the emerging melody) the hesitant tenderness of another person. It is not suffering as such that makes someone appreciate love, it is only when suffering pierces our vanity - which happens when we do not blame someone else for our pain - that it awakens a deeper respect for love."

John Armstrong
'Conditions of love - the philosophy of intimacy'
P. 143