Whatever happened to the noble art of the manly weep?
I cry less and less as I age:<p>Teens? All the time. Perhaps monthly or even weekly at times.<p>20s? Less so, but more intensely. Perhaps every six months on average.<p>30s? Only twice in two years, and I&#x27;m a 32-year-old male now.<p>Those times were basically weeping, and I&#x27;d thought I&#x27;d hit rock bottom in a mental health&#x2F;depression context. Maybe I had, but life got much, much worse after that. The interesting thing however, is that somewhere along the line I lost the ability to cry. I&#x27;d want to cry, but I couldn&#x27;t anymore.<p>Haven&#x27;t been able to for over a year now. It&#x27;s like when you hit what you think is the bottom, you drop through to the basement. I hesitate to say it&#x27;s an unfeeling basement—if anything it&#x27;s more extreme feelings of despair—but it&#x27;s certainly one where for whatever reason, crying no longer exists.<p>When things were really bad recently, I&#x27;d look in a mirror and just see this tearless dry laugh or heave of despair. Wanted to cry, but it&#x27;s like the emotional pain or stress or anxiety was too high to allow it.<p>My best friend and I saw Joker during the midst of all this, and then we went home to make dinner after. It disturbed him a little when I nailed emulating the laugh without even trying, the first time. Usually I&#x27;m the one that can&#x27;t do voices to save my life, and he&#x27;s the one who can do anything. He couldn&#x27;t do the Joker laugh no matter how much he tried.<p>My theory is I had already experienced the aforementioned feeling in the mirror. I unwittingly had practice. You have to be either a really good actor, or seriously hurting to emulate that laugh correctly. It&#x27;s a laugh because the tears are dry for some reason.<p>That said, I&#x27;m sure despair can go far deeper still, and I really hope to never experience that.<p>-<p>It could be that crying is like a muscle. Perhaps it&#x27;s a developed emotional mechanism that—when used appropriately—is beneficial to emotional well-being. However, like any muscle it can atrophy if it isn&#x27;t used frequently enough, or lacks in sufficient nutrition.<p>Maybe crying can only happen when conditions are right. If things get too bad, or you&#x27;re too worn down, you lose the ability to do so.<p>Perhaps crying doesn&#x27;t happen because depression in combination with stress or anxiety are the primary reason for the despair. I&#x27;d probably cry immediately for the death of a loved one, for example.<p>Whatever the case, that&#x27;s my take on it. Everyone&#x27;s different and likely has their own reasons why they cry or don&#x27;t cry. As the article points out, societal factors of course play an outsized role as well.<p>-<p>Disclaimer: Wrote this simply for the exercise of it, to explore the topic. Not a plea for help or anything, I&#x27;m fine. Joker was a flawed yet excellent film that explored some serious mental health topics, and I dislike the notion that it somehow had a violent or anarchic message. Quite obviously the contrary in my opinion.