But what if you simply don’t have any tears to shed? That’s what my eye doctor recently cautioned me, after a routine examination. The natural tearing in my eye, necessary for keeping it moist and clean, wasn’t quite working. There is nothing to worry, he hastened to add, for it sometimes happens as our bodies slowly age. He asked me to use eye drops twice a day for a while.
This set me thinking about the value and power of tears. Although most land mammals have a lacrimation system to keep their eyes moist, humans are the only mammal generally accepted to cry emotional tears.
In my circles, I’m known to be an emotional guy. I have never believed in that macho myth of men not crying. I shed tears of joy and tears of sorrow, sometimes in public. I cry when people I know, admire or love leave this world, sometimes at the most unexpected moments. Powerful movie moments of triumph or despair often move me to tears, as do simple joys of life — such as seeing my kid perform well on stage in a school concert.
Despite what my doctor says, I’ve been shedding plenty of tears this year.
I openly wept when journalist colleague Lasantha Wickrematunge was gunned down in broad daylight on a cruel January day. He was Sri Lanka’s real leader of the opposition.
My eyes were completely misty when the news of the original TV news anchorman and broadcast giant Walter Cronkite passed away on 18 July 2009 after an illustrious career spanning decades.
In contrast, Michael Jackson’s death on 25 June didn’t immediately move me to tears, even though I quickly wrote a tribute. But the live broadcast of his star-studded funeral service on 6 July did. I watched it in the solitude of a hotel room in Amsterdam on a warm summer evening, and cried — as much for the tragic end of the man as what he stood for. Those tears inspired the op ed essay on the two Moonwalks.
I can add more to this list if I think long enough. The point is: my eye specialist’s clinical examination didn’t capture these highlights (lowlights?). There’s a part of our emotional lives that our doctors may never fathom. We ourselves are often barely aware of it.
A recent article in Reader’s Digest (March 2009 issue), titled Big Boys Don’t Cry — and Other Myths About Men and Their Emotions, said new research reveals that a man’s emotional life is as complex and rich as a woman’s, but often remains a mystery to him as well as to any woman who loves him. You can say that again!
Conventional wisdom doesn’t encourage or celebrate grown men crying. One of my favourite poems is ‘Solitude’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, which opens with these memorable lines:
“Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.”
My close friends think I’m melancholic by nature, and long ago I came to terms with who and what I am. I don’t spend my days lamenting or weeping, for sure, but I also don’t hesitate to cry when the emotion warrants it.
If that means I weep alone, so be it.
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 
Its ok to cry when the situation warrants as long as you don’t become cry babies who fuss over everything. There is a time and a place for everything.
I too cried while watching the Michael Jackson tribute live on CNN. I cried so much that it was hard for me to breathe. When I was 18 in Scotland, my mother paid a clairvoyant gipsy woman to read my future. She told me that while reading me, I would feel a strange sensation, like energy escaping from the top of my head, and indeed I felt it. It was the strangest sensation I ever felt, like my spirit was being connected to the heavens. While watching the MJ tribute, I was struck by this exact same sensation. It was as if the top of my head had become attached an umbilical cord to the entire world, and I felt connected to hundreds of millions of people whose hearts were opened and made vulnerable by the same emotional stimulus. I felt the entire world connect… an incredible feeling I wish never to forget.
For in this age of dissatisfaction,
We but crave for emotion.
Biggest challenge for men who have grow up being taught to be strong, protector, provider..oblivious to own emotions and how to vent and manage it. Generally any man who cries is mistaken as vulnerability..and most of us don’t understand that.