Franklin D. Roosevelt identified "fear itself" as the only thing to fear.
Had he thought a minute longer, he might have added, with a shudder, "Oh. And crying. Yes, yes, the things to fear are fear itself and crying people."
Daily life is packed with expressions of extreme human emotions, beginning with the guy in the pickup truck offering his one-fingered salute on your morning commute. Bosses throw tantrums in boardrooms. Toddlers scream in store aisles. Teenagers curse and shout or dissolve into fits of giggling hysteria, and somehow the world makes way.
But when it comes to crying, your shrink is the only one who wants you to do more of it. Everyone else hopes you will never cry, at least not where they can see you. And if you are already crying, they want you to stop -- immediately.
As a people, we Americans are practically allergic to the tears of others. Our reactions vary with the situation, but they tend to be extreme. When Sen. Hillary Clinton's eyes grew merely damp during campaigning in New Hampshire, pundits first reacted with various forms of, "She's showing weakness! She's done for!"
After she came back to win the primary, the experts adjusted their (no less over-reactive) views on the matter: "She's human! Women loved her!"
It all seemed like just so much wet Kleenex over a brief moment of normal human emotion, but then again, "normal" is not what most of us think when we see others crying. We think of weakness, frailty, timidity. We think of tears as a side effect of culpability or failure. They might indicate great sorrow or tremendous affection. And in women, they're definitely a hint of hormonal compromise, right?
True tragedy and loss of life present instances of forgivable crying, although even those situations make some witnesses squirm. Occasionally, we make room in our hearts for the image of noble men shedding saltwater in noble situations, such as declaring victory in battle or rescuing children from burning buildings or winning 200 bucks on the third horse in the fourth race.
