What pretty eyelashes.

So, what’s crying exactly? Is it just something we do in our spare time, or is there meaning to it? Does it make us stronger, weaker, or is it just something that we do?

Well, I don’t really know.

But it’s 2:30 AM and I just finished “crying” of laughter, and “crying” of happiness. Yet, at the same time, I’ve cried of sadness, cried of sorrow. What can we really take out of such an activity?

To be honest, I’m not sure. But I think that crying is perfectly alright. Most men think that such an activity suggests weakness or infidelity; if anything, it’s more of a sign of strength and confidence. Crying shouldn’t be shunned; it should be embraced.

I think when I look back, what really defined me was my tendency to cry. Of course, that isn’t “ideal” by any means; that just made me a “cry-baby” or whatever the term is. But the thing that it did do, however, is develop a sense of perseverance and fixation to at least mediate what went wrong. Crying helped me alleviate my pressures by taking out my angst without hurting anyone or anything; for me, that was already enough. Crying has given me the ability to empathize a lot more, the ability to emotionally understand people the way they should be understood.

However, all wasn’t good. Crying made me want to pull out the pity card as much as I wanted; after a while, though, that wouldn’t work. Crying made me want to always complain about how I wasn’t wrong, or about how someone else was always the culprit. Crying made me push my problems back until someone else took over. Crying hurt my pride and my ego, which had already been at an all time low.

Now, I could go into the chemical and biological aspects of crying, but I won’t. I will mention instead, though, the intimacy of the tears. When someone cries, we’re always compelled to ask why: even if we don’t know the person, even if we don’t want to confront them, we know something’s wrong (for the most part). But somewhere in that line of thinking, we connect with the other person: could he/she have gotten into a fight, a break-up, etc. Our tears can no longer cover up us: they are the indicators of truth. When someone holds back tears, they want to appear strong: however, everyone still notices. We, as people, have become accustomed to interpreting tears as giving up; quite the contrary. Tears are a way to keep going, to keep fighting for another day.

— From your friend Josh at “Fleeting Thoughts”