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catastrophyreading. And I have stumbled accross an interesting blurb in Impoderables by Dvid Feldman.
Apparently, 'tears of happiness' are just something we made up.
"There is no such thing as 'tears of happiness.' We cry not because we are happy but because unpleasant feelings are stirred up at the occasion of a happy ending."
pp. 79-80 of Imponderables: The Solution to the Mysteries of Everyday Life by David Feldman published by Quill in New York 1987:
Why do we cry at happy endings?
Eureka! There is actually a conclusion upon which psychologists agree: There is no such thing as "tears of happniess." We cry not beacuse we are happy but because unpleasant feelings are stirred up at the occasion of a happy ending.
Most adults are capable of repressing the urge to cry, but not without an exertion of psychic energy. When a happy ending indicates that our grief is no longer merited, the energy used to inhibit our tears is now discharged, sometimes in the form of laughter, but more often in an expression of the repressed sadness---tears.
Many people sit stoically through a tearjerker like Camille and then sob at a "heartwarming" thirty-second long-distance commercial or a reunion on Truth or Consequences. Happy endings often conjure up an idealized world of kindness and love that we once, as children, believed was possible to attain in our own lives. Children rarely cry at happy endings, because they are not yet disillusioned about their own possibilities.
(Talk about depressing!)
For the adult, the happy ending is a temporary return to the innocence of childhood---the tears stem from the recognition that one must return to the tougher "real" world. (Dude, is anyone else starting to hear "The Return to Innocence" and see flashes of the movie Legend?) The child, without comprehension of the permanence of death, sees the happy ending as confirmation of the limitless possibilities of life.
(Yes, that's right, you heard 'im. We're all doomed)
The tendency to cry at happy endings is not restricted to stories. In real life, it is common for relatives of a critically ill patient not to cry before or during a delicate surgery, but after the operation is successful. The happy ending enables the loved one to feel safe in unleashing all the sadness and anxiety that had been repressed.
(That would probably explain many of the fits of crying I've had that seem completely unrelated to actual day that they happened on... that is if you would call cuddling under the comforter and blankets with Jeremy a 'happy ending')
Psychologists even dispute the idea that the tears shed at rites of passage such as weddings, graduation, and bar mitzvahs are tears of joy. Precisely because these ceremonies symbolize transitions in young people's lives, rituals stir up repressed anxieties in loved ones about the past ("Why wasn't my wedding as joyous?"), insecurities about the present ("Why haven't I found my true love like the bride and groom have?"), and fear about the future ("How will I survive when my children leave the nest?").
(In short, we can never really, truely be happy for eachother, it's all a lie! A dark, insidious, shameless lie!) ^.~
In our emotional world, we are needy, selfish, and demanding. We cry for ourselves at happy endings, not for others, but this does not mean we are all incapable of feeling joy in others' happiness. (It doesn't?...but I thought...) Crying at the happy ending reveals our idealistic side, the part of us that yearns for the simplicity and love we once thought possible and the part of us that mourns its unattainability.
So...
what it boils down to that sure, we're not all insensitive barstards who are impervious to getting empathic every now and again and truely celebrating (or even grieving) with our friends...
we're just hopelessly obsessed with the fact that the world is no longer the perfect place we had at one time imagined it to be and are therefore jaded, unable to come to grips with the fact our emotions are more complex than we thought them to be... slowly---but surely, I ensure you--- sinking into wallows of self-pity, convinced that there is no possible way that we can actually enjoy the world now that our rose-colored glasses have been swapped for corrective lenses...
whoa! hey... is that a giant Rei looming over the world? Hey, what's the crazy music? Is that german? Holy mother of God! Everyone's turning into orange jello!!
Ahhhhhhhh! Don't touch me, Rei! Get away! I don't want to be JELLO!!!
*SPLISH*
Problem solved.
Apparently, 'tears of happiness' are just something we made up.
"There is no such thing as 'tears of happiness.' We cry not because we are happy but because unpleasant feelings are stirred up at the occasion of a happy ending."
pp. 79-80 of Imponderables: The Solution to the Mysteries of Everyday Life by David Feldman published by Quill in New York 1987:
Why do we cry at happy endings?
Eureka! There is actually a conclusion upon which psychologists agree: There is no such thing as "tears of happniess." We cry not beacuse we are happy but because unpleasant feelings are stirred up at the occasion of a happy ending.
Most adults are capable of repressing the urge to cry, but not without an exertion of psychic energy. When a happy ending indicates that our grief is no longer merited, the energy used to inhibit our tears is now discharged, sometimes in the form of laughter, but more often in an expression of the repressed sadness---tears.
Many people sit stoically through a tearjerker like Camille and then sob at a "heartwarming" thirty-second long-distance commercial or a reunion on Truth or Consequences. Happy endings often conjure up an idealized world of kindness and love that we once, as children, believed was possible to attain in our own lives. Children rarely cry at happy endings, because they are not yet disillusioned about their own possibilities.
(Talk about depressing!)
For the adult, the happy ending is a temporary return to the innocence of childhood---the tears stem from the recognition that one must return to the tougher "real" world. (Dude, is anyone else starting to hear "The Return to Innocence" and see flashes of the movie Legend?) The child, without comprehension of the permanence of death, sees the happy ending as confirmation of the limitless possibilities of life.
(Yes, that's right, you heard 'im. We're all doomed)
The tendency to cry at happy endings is not restricted to stories. In real life, it is common for relatives of a critically ill patient not to cry before or during a delicate surgery, but after the operation is successful. The happy ending enables the loved one to feel safe in unleashing all the sadness and anxiety that had been repressed.
(That would probably explain many of the fits of crying I've had that seem completely unrelated to actual day that they happened on... that is if you would call cuddling under the comforter and blankets with Jeremy a 'happy ending')
Psychologists even dispute the idea that the tears shed at rites of passage such as weddings, graduation, and bar mitzvahs are tears of joy. Precisely because these ceremonies symbolize transitions in young people's lives, rituals stir up repressed anxieties in loved ones about the past ("Why wasn't my wedding as joyous?"), insecurities about the present ("Why haven't I found my true love like the bride and groom have?"), and fear about the future ("How will I survive when my children leave the nest?").
(In short, we can never really, truely be happy for eachother, it's all a lie! A dark, insidious, shameless lie!) ^.~
In our emotional world, we are needy, selfish, and demanding. We cry for ourselves at happy endings, not for others, but this does not mean we are all incapable of feeling joy in others' happiness. (It doesn't?...but I thought...) Crying at the happy ending reveals our idealistic side, the part of us that yearns for the simplicity and love we once thought possible and the part of us that mourns its unattainability.
So...
what it boils down to that sure, we're not all insensitive barstards who are impervious to getting empathic every now and again and truely celebrating (or even grieving) with our friends...
we're just hopelessly obsessed with the fact that the world is no longer the perfect place we had at one time imagined it to be and are therefore jaded, unable to come to grips with the fact our emotions are more complex than we thought them to be... slowly---but surely, I ensure you--- sinking into wallows of self-pity, convinced that there is no possible way that we can actually enjoy the world now that our rose-colored glasses have been swapped for corrective lenses...
whoa! hey... is that a giant Rei looming over the world? Hey, what's the crazy music? Is that german? Holy mother of God! Everyone's turning into orange jello!!
Ahhhhhhhh! Don't touch me, Rei! Get away! I don't want to be JELLO!!!
*SPLISH*
Problem solved.
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it occurs to me,
Date: 2004-08-26 11:11 am (UTC)about the comforter-cuddling's status as a 'happy ending'
I meant it's more of a 'happy' than an 'ending' persay...
no sunsets, no sudden reappearences of ppl supposed to be on trans-Oceanic flights, no saving the kingdom from evil invaders or anything....
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 12:51 pm (UTC)Psychiatrists are weird people.
Psychologists
Date: 2004-08-26 06:00 pm (UTC)Re: Psychologists
Date: 2004-08-26 07:42 pm (UTC)So how's the thing with the kitties worked out?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-29 02:07 pm (UTC)