In general I read pretty broadly, or, truth be told, skim pretty broadly. But once in a while an essay catches my attention that has me read deep, long and hard, or provides the pleasure of really expanding my horizon.

The Economist article below is such an instance: it describes how research into a basic human activity – crying – evolved over the years. Not so many years, as it turns out.

The concept of emotions themselves dates back only to the 19th century, when French philosophers tried to understand our feelings as reflexes, not “moral sentiments or accidents of the soul.” So many feelings, and so many of them culturally specific:

“basorexia, the sudden urge to kiss someone; or matutolypea, the ill-temper that flourishes between the alarm-clock and the day’s first cup of coffee. For Anglophone readers, some of her subjects are mysteries locked behind the door of someone else’s culture. Amae, a Japanese term that describes the comfort felt when you surrender, temporarily, to the care and authority of a loved one. Liget, an angry enthusiasm that buzzes in the Ilongot tribe of the Philippines, pushing them to great feats of activity – sometimes agricultural, sometimes murderous. Awumbuk, a feeling of emptiness after visitors have departed, is experienced by the Baining people of Papua New Guinea”

And so little we knew about crying.

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-luxury-of-tears

Give me good old guilt, or anger, or surprise, any time…… Or a good cry, for that matter. My lachrymal life seems to have been severely curtailed with increasing age. More simply said, it’s very hard to cry these days.

And that despite the fact that I fall squarely into the group that, according to modern research, cries the most: those living in affluent, democratic, extroverted, and individualistic countries. I certainly do not belong currently in the category of people who are under severe stress  – physiologically, economically, emotionally – and who are much less likely to cry than the rest of us even though they would be most justified. The energy is simply not available to them.

(Photographs, by the way, come from visits to museums and cemeteries – I do not take picture of actual people crying….)

Darwin assumed that tears had no function. Modern psychologists assume the opposite – tears have an important role, they make us empathic, an important trait for our species which has a long, helpless childhood, a vulnerable period for survival. Tears elicit care, protection and love from adults (in theory)…. and silent tears aimed at the protecting parent do not give away weakness to predators, as vocal cries would do.

Loss, failure and helplessness produce tears, as do positive situations where tears help to bond relationships. How others react to tears matters as well – positive feedback or scorn will shift your own experience of crying. As will illnesses like depression – crying does not provide the relief it does when done for extraneous causes.  Thus, crying is not universally alike, nor is it always good or always bad – context will make all the difference.

Time to find a good tearjerker movie…..