Monday 7 January 2002

Pic of the day: Listening to Birgitte.

Thinking of tears

Last night before I went to bed, I played the song Tears by Infinity; and now it keeps playing in my head. This is not quite a bad thing: It is a friendly song, with the irrepressibly happy type of melody that is so typical of Infinity, only slower and gentler and milder. The song is written and performed by Birgitte Moe, as are indeed most of the songs on this latest CD. But I feel sure that the music is still made by the publicity-shy third member of the group. I am surprised that you can stay within such a narrow band of style (happy bouncy) and still make each track unique. Perhaps not memorable, though the Infinity style is, but still unique.

Enough about the music, bring on the lyrics. The recurring line, repeated several times in the song and even more in my head, goes like this: "I've seen your tears a thousand times..."

At which time I think: Either she's a lot older than she looks, or her friend is seriously depressed. How often do people weep, really? I guess that is individual, but with the great divides being between a) children and adults, b) women and men, and c) depressed and non-depressed. (Actually depressed men don't necessarily weep, at least not if they are sober, but depressed women usually do.) Being firmly in the last group on all counts, I estimate that I cry on average 5-10 minutes a year, spaced out on 3-5 occasions. Unless you're one of my older family members who watched me as a small boy, you haven't seen my tears a thousand times; nor are you likely to, even should we live the rest of our lives together and reach ripe old age.

As you know if this isn't your first visit, I don't live with anybody. Nor have I done so for the last twenty-some years, since I grew up. I don't really know from experience how it is with women and crying, except that I don't like it. I guess some of them weep a lot and some don't. I certainly don't know how to comfort a grown-up, nor when to do so, nor even why. If people want to feel sorry and cry, shouldn't they be allowed to do so? It is their own choice, after all. Happiness and sorrow are both within our heart; we choose which one to turn to, after what we feel is appropriate.

With children it is different. They contain the building blocks of the human psyche, but the blocks are sometimes too heavy to lift, too large compared to their small consciousness. When they are small, things like the release of urine and feces come as a great surprise. This usually passes after a while; but even much later they are surprised by more abstract events such as joy, sorrow and anger. These things just come out of nowhere, just like the urine did earlier, and can be really embarrassing. But as our mind grows, it eventually enfolds these things too and brings them under control. We then use them judiciously, or perhaps with gay abandon for those who so prefer. But we are the captain; they are the crew.

***

Of course, we may be the captain of our own fate or whatever they say, but there is the occasional leaky ship. It seems to me that depression is becoming endemic, and is now considered almost normal, like poor eyesight. Just as we can correct eyesight by finding the right glasses or lenses, we can correct depression by finding the right antidepressant. We have just not come quite as far in diagnosing depression.

In the past, there was little to do about depression, even though there was certainly enough of it. If people survived, they - and all around them - got used to it eventually. If they killed themselves, they were buried outside the cemetery wall, so that Jesus upon his Second Coming would know not to bother with those worthless sinners. (If that's my Jesus they're talking about, they may be in for a surprise. But let's not go there today.)

But what is the appropriate level of sadness, sorrow and tears? I do not know. You may argue that as a single white man in a free rich country, I have little or no reason to weep. Then again, I think such emotions are more personal than that. I doubt anyone has ever wept for the gross domestic product.

I guess I might weep with sorrow because my mother died last spring. But I don't, and I didn't. It is the way of life that we must die, and I strongly resent it, but I am not God. It matters not what I want in these matters. We do what we can, not what we can not.

(Back when I was young and my mother was the age I am now, I saw that the black spot on her neck looked like a malign melanoma, and I insisted that she tell the doctor. She told the doctor, who said it was nothing, just a birthmark. "It wasn't there at birth." "Well, a 40-years mark then." She kept nagging him, though, even going as far as citing my concern. Baffled by this, the doctor eventually had the cancer removed, but in due time it returned, and eventually led to a painful and somewhat premature death. What can I say? I did what I could, and it helped some, but life and death are not mine to rule over. For which a whole lot of people should fall down and praise the Creator, I guess.)

Furthermore, I actually believe in a reasonably benevolent and reasonably omnipotent God. Certainly He (or whatever pronoun best describes such an entity) cannot do everything, at least within the confines of the universe, for the fine silken fabric of space-time would unravel easily if God ruled by whim rather than by law, doing the impossible. Like, creating a stone so big that he couldn't lift it, and then dropping it from Heaven on cheeky atheists. ^_-

But resurrecting the dead should surely not be beyond reason. It is not as if the past is lost, after all. For good reason we are not able to go back in time; paradox would unravel all our works. But that does not mean that time is not a dimension, just one that we cannot travel. God, or indeed another suitable extra-cosmic entity, could access the past in full detail by observing along the time axis, and make a perfect (or improved) copy of whoever and whatever was found worthy of conservation. It is hardly magic. (And even if it were, God is supposed to be able to handle it.)

But no matter whether God - or anyone else - can and will resurrect the dead, the fact remains that I cannot, and my tears cannot. Nor do they accomplish much else.

***

Should I weep with loneliness? It bears repeating how I once played The Sims, the people simulator from Maxis. There I had one single Sim whose social needs I ignored by not calling any friends for him (for some reason they don't think of this on their own, though they will socialize on their own if there is company present). Finally, when he was almost completely in the red and was breaking down, I called, and a couple friends came over. But when they rang the doorbell, the poor guy was so overcome with self-pity over his loneliness that he broke down crying instead of going to open the door. When he finally was finished wailing, the guests had gone.

My need for human contact is less than most. Probably less than almost any sane human. (Let us for the sake of discussion assume that I am sane, just not normal.) But even I need - or could use - some interaction. Certainly it is then my responsibility to reach out to others. In fact, because others need me more than I need them, I should do so more than I want. I'm still working on that.

So in conclusion, I think worries should be solved by action rather than weeping, unless one wants to weep rather than to solve, which is of course one's own choice. But like my life overall, this is subject to change without notice. There is a modern saying: "Real men don't make backup. But they do weep."