Dear diary,

I have cried more in the past few months than I had in the 11 years before it. I have thought a lot about why that’s the case. In the past, purely physically, there were at least a couple of times a year that I would feel like I should cry. I felt like it would be the right thing to do, that somehow it would help the situation, or at least bring me relief. I still couldn’t. I didn’t try to hold tears back, they just wouldn’t come out. The only exception was a single drop while watching someone else cry, which is only the result of mirror-cells. In that sense, I think I’ve let myself go a little bit since then. I’m more responsive to the current moment.


To elaborate, my perspective has changed. I used to be able to hear a local news story about a case of physical abuse, read an international news story about the total death count in the Iraq war, and be told about a friend’s current bout of illness, and respond with; ‘well, that’s a freak occurrence’, ‘every war has a lot of people die’, and ‘we all get sick’. Now I respond with ‘what kind of pain must that victim be in?’, ‘that’s a huge amount of bereaved family members and friends’, and ‘he must be in a lot of discomfort’. There is nothing wrong with the former, or the latter, but there is a difference.


I don’t blame anyone for not comprehending or addressing the sheer human suffering that goes on every day. For one, it’s almost impossible, and for 2, it’s not fun. For some reason, I am really in tune with it recently. Instead of looking at things objectively, coldly; show sympathy everywhere, and to everyone. They all deserve it. After all, if you were abused, killed or sick, you’d think your own feelings, livelihood and comfort were worthy of regard. You might cry, but just like me, you’ll still be a “man”(at least as much as you ever were) and you might just come out a better person.

3 comments:

. said...

Don't be Emo, its ok to cry. Its ok.....Its seriously cool , crying is good if it puts you in tune and gives you a human experience in which you can base the daily injustice that occurs in our fucked up world, (which could be so much better if people weren't so emo) See where im going with this? Its an endless cycle. So be it. So I say CRY!

. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lou said...

for real this is the way I have gotten over the last year or two. I thought it was very strange because I used to be so indifferent to suffering and tragedy. Not that I didn't often find such things to be terrible, but i was more likely to write them off in a relatively cold way, or by thinking along the lines of "everyone suffers" or "all people die." Whether or not the change is a good or bad thing, it can help by lending a different perspective to many of the "problems" in life.