Let's Cry

When I first read Debra’s article for January, “Let’s Laugh,” Aerosmith’s 1973 release, “Dream On,” started playing in my head—especially the line, “Sing for the laughter and sing for the tears.” What occurred to me is what would laughter be if there were no tears?

Here are the lyrics for those who like to have the complete context:

Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It went by like dusk to dawn
Isn’t that the way
Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay

Well, I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it’s everybody’s sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Half my life’s in books’ written pages
Live and learn from fools and from sages
You know it’s true
All the things come back to you

Sing with me sing for the years
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tears
Sing with me if it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away

The implication is that both laughter and tears are rooted in our mortality. We are aware we are alive, and that has both costs and benefits. The fancy name for this is mortality salience—from a fairly early age, humans are aware that they will die. It is not clear to what degree other mammals share this knowledge. Although other mammals don’t laugh or cry quite the way humans do, if you have opportunity to observe them carefully, you will catch them doing the equivalent of laughing or crying, typically in response to something physical. As far as we know, humans are the only ones who can “think” themselves into laughter or tears. We know that animals can remember and anticipate, but we don’t know the degree to which their cognitions influence their mood. Humans may be the only creatures whose internal life outweighs external circumstances.

In 1991, Karol K. Truman published Feelings Buried Alive Never Die…. The book explores the dynamic underpinnings of buried emotions. Laughter and tears are typically the expression of emotions that have been buried and are subsequently triggered by an event. When the buried emotions come to the “surface” of consciousness, we laugh or cry based on associated memories. The English poet William Wordsworth, said it this way: “To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. (For the complete poem, see Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.

Everything, all our experiences from birth through whatever age we are now, adds up. The laughter and the tears are complementary. One doesn’t cancel the other out. They work together to provide us with a multidimensional perspective of Life. We know we are happy because of the way happiness contrasts with sadness, and we know we are sad because of our memories of happiness. As Debra said, “Laughter … anchors us in the now. The same, of course, is true for the tears of sadness. I think that both are necessary for our (yours, mine, everyone’s) evolving consciousness. In terms of our collective consciousness, we seem to be at a major pivot point in history.

We have been living in what might be called interesting times. We are beset by problems at all levels: local, national, and global. We also have unprecedented opportunities. Old technologies, based primarily on the exploitation of fossil fuels, are being replaced by “clean” technologies. We have numerous wars and other national and international conflicts resulting not only in death but also in massive migrations. In the States, we have just had an election that gave us who live here the opportunity to choose between the first woman candidate for that office and a celebrity business person with no real political expertise.

When you find yourself having thoughts that provoke laughter or tears, you are doing something uniquely human, and it is something you have in common with Socrates. At the same time, however, remember the words of a more modern philosopher, Jackson Browne, who provided musical insight into seeing too much evil and good:

Doctor My Eyes

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand

I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you can

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long

‘Cause I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I’ve been waiting to awaken from these dreams
People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it’s later than it seems

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see
I hear their cries
Just say if it’s too late for me

Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky
Is this the prize for having learned how not to cry