tears

This will – I promise – be the last of this brief series of posts bemoaning the fact that the year appears to be winding down in an effluvium of enervation.

I am well aware that there are plenty who are far worse off than I, and that there are many – including some of those whom I love dearly – that have endured considerably more difficult and challenging years than have I. It would be entirely inappropriate under such circumstances for me to continue to wallow in self-pity, and absolutely essential therefore that I rather just get over myself!

Before so doing, however, I do just want to examine one final fatigue related phenomenon – that of cause-less weeping… by which, of course, I mean crying without there being any specific or genuine stimulus. Though such symptoms can result from a number of quite complex causes it is well known that they can also be a side effect of a simple lack of sleep.

I was fortunate as a child not to have been indoctrinated into the then all too common belief that men should not cry – although I am not now entirely clear how this came about. My father was certainly not given to displays of maudlin emotion but – as far as I know – that was because he never experienced any such, rather than that he didn’t believe in letting it show. I am sure that my mother did cry, but it was not her way to let others in on her feelings no matter what they might have been.

Either way – neither of them frowned upon nor admonished me for letting my emotions show. As a result it has always felt quite natural for me to let the tears flow not only at the emotionally charged moments in my life, but also at representations of like events – be they fictional or documentative. Yes – I blub like a baby at films, plays, novels, poetry, TV dramas, music, paintings, documentaries, news items, etc, etc… and sometimes – it would seem – at nothing at all! I am clearly possessed of what the ladies might (hopefully) see as a ‘strong feminine side’ – although it may well also be that I am in truth what ‘real’ men might consider a wuss! Well – you pays yer money…

I am – perhaps inevitably – greatly interested the whole subject – along with the sentimentality with which such lachrymosity oft-times goes hand in hand – to the extent that I am in the process of writing an as yet unfinished play for which this comprises a major theme. Completion thereof may now have to wait until retirement, for there is clearly yet research to be done.

I feel certain that I am not alone in being familiar with that un-anticipated welling up of emotion at an unexpected moment – at the sudden sharp prick of the tears – of the catch in the throat – the shortening of the breath – the wave-break of concern for something apparently trivial…

But consider this… Perhaps it is not so much that sleep deprivation leads us to otherwise gratuitous sensations of emotion. Perhaps it is more that – at such times – our sensitivities are simply ‘turned up to 10’ (if you know what I mean)! Maybe that we respond to things that would normally slip by beneath the radar is actually appropriate – even if the reactions themselves are somewhat exaggerated. Mayhap we should look a little more closely than we are accustomed to do at the things that – at such times – cause our tears to be unleashed.

I am with the romantics. In the world of the senses we would be well advised to pay heed to each such manifestation.