Life Desk :
Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.
-Leonardo da Vinci
We shed tears when our favourite cricket team loses, when we break up with a loved one, or welcome a new member of the family into the world – or, in many cases, if we realize a long-lost dream.
In other words, we cry at moments when our emotions brim over. The precise psychological mechanics of emotional tears are still debated by academics, but there is a general agreement that they perform a cathartic action relieving feelings of stress, supporting the oft-given advice from well meaning aunties that we should, “have a good cry, it’ll make you feel better.”
“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,” wrote Tennyson in ‘The Princess’ – the speaker was weeping with nostalgia for “the happy autumn-fields” and “the days that are no more”. We weep in the movies, in theatres, over books, because we are moved by the predicament, or the joy, of people we don’t know – but why should these people in these circumstances activate our lachrymal ducts?
Death and departure, the severing of close bonds, make us weep because they play on our deepest childhood fears of abandonment and solitude in the scary forest. But above all these, there is sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.
Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of pure heart. Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness. And don’t cry over someone who wouldn’t cry over you.
So don’t be ashamed to weep next time; it is absolutely right to grieve. Tears are only water; and flowers, trees, and fruits cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones are sealed inside to comfort us.
-ToI
Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.
-Leonardo da Vinci
We shed tears when our favourite cricket team loses, when we break up with a loved one, or welcome a new member of the family into the world – or, in many cases, if we realize a long-lost dream.
In other words, we cry at moments when our emotions brim over. The precise psychological mechanics of emotional tears are still debated by academics, but there is a general agreement that they perform a cathartic action relieving feelings of stress, supporting the oft-given advice from well meaning aunties that we should, “have a good cry, it’ll make you feel better.”
“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,” wrote Tennyson in ‘The Princess’ – the speaker was weeping with nostalgia for “the happy autumn-fields” and “the days that are no more”. We weep in the movies, in theatres, over books, because we are moved by the predicament, or the joy, of people we don’t know – but why should these people in these circumstances activate our lachrymal ducts?
Death and departure, the severing of close bonds, make us weep because they play on our deepest childhood fears of abandonment and solitude in the scary forest. But above all these, there is sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.
Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of pure heart. Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness. And don’t cry over someone who wouldn’t cry over you.
So don’t be ashamed to weep next time; it is absolutely right to grieve. Tears are only water; and flowers, trees, and fruits cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones are sealed inside to comfort us.
-ToI
