Porcelain Philosophy 14: Tears

Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.

Seneca

When we were wee, whiny, and wonderful, what were our reasons for crying?

If my memory serves correctly -- and though it shames me slightly to admit it -- I was a crier. Scraped elbows and knees, getting caught in misdeeds, losing a game, and getting lost were some of the reasons I would cry. As I got older, tears still sprung forth unbidden from my eyes, once in awhile, whenever I didn't get my way.

Somewhere along the way, the masculine gender identity was determined to be exclusive of the act of crying; as emotion manifest, crying was seen to be of the feminine sphere. It was (and still is) considered unmanly to shed tears. To that end, boys were whipped into bottling up their feelings and distilling it into potent potions of masculine ambition, agression and angst. In my (not-so-humble) point of view, this is bollocks. Male or female, the human head is more or less crafted from the same mold; the ductwork, fixtures and apertures are all the same. To associate crying, a natural physiological response that everyone is capable of, to one sex is chauvinism.


Matters of gender discrimination aside, crying was, for most intents and purposes, a selfish reaction. Waah, I scraped my knee and you need to help fix me. Waah, she took my toy and wouldn't give it back. Waah, I am being pushed around by brutish boors. As a child, those moments happened often, and so crying happened fairly often.

Our tears betray our motivations. What we care about most deeply in our hearts run like underground streams within us. When our barriers are broken and our foundations are shaken, we will spring leaks where it matters most.

I'm not sure when it all changed, but the tears do not come so easily now. When they do, the reason is not because I didn't get my way, nor is it because I am damaged, but because of the pain suffered by others. Maybe it's all part of growing up, or maybe it's just the physical maturation of my prefrontal cortex, but I think I know what I care most about now.