An Analysis of Tears, Analyzing, and how they relate to each other.

So, I've been working on this story of mine and I'm continuously struck by how writing about something makes it easier to understand myself, others, and even life in general. I always think of writing a story as documenting a journey that already happened, so I'm discovering things just as my characters are, but maybe a few steps ahead. And my discoveries always lead to something new and interesting that I can relate to my own life in this world.

What I was writing today got me thinking about crying. Why is it that people cry when they are sad or stressed? It seems like an image or a metaphor--shedding tears allows a person to literally shed the sorrow or other strong emotion being felt at the time. And when a person cries without having a clear reason why, it's because there is some strong feeling hidden underneath. I can say from person experience that sometimes it's much easier to push something inside of myself rather than bring it out into the open and analyze it to make things better.

Oh, analyzing. For the longest time, I've passionately hated analyzing literature in school. But recently I realized I enjoy analyzing, and I do it all the time. What I hate is when educators tell you your opinion is incorrect. They make us write essays that analyze poems or fiction or art, in which we have to discuss why something is the way it is in the work, but if your perspective happens to be different than the one on the grading sheet, your score goes way down. How is that fair? It's like they're trying to make us think a certain way. But I want to think in MY way, not according to their guidelines.

But now I'm veering off the topic...it's funny how the human mind works like that. I see it all the time in random conversations with friends--we start out talking about one thing, and end up on an entirely different subject. The mind works REALLY fast in that sense, relating one thing to another in the blink of an eye. Pretty cool when you think about it.

Back to crying...actually, I'll talk about the analyzing part. Over-analyzing. Oh my goodness. I do that ALL the time. And not in school, not when I'm writing an essay, but out in the real world. Simple comments make me think of all the different possible reasonings. Sometimes it's useful to be so prone to analyzing, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's just really annoying. And I think that's one of the reasons why I often push my true emotions and feelings deep down inside--because I know that if I think about them, I might start thinking too much, and everything will become more complex, when it's supposed to get more simple. Sometimes I think it's better to not think about things, and just let life flow forward at its own pace. But if we do feel like crying, we should still let the tears fall. Because even if we don't search for the root of the problem, there's something about shedding tears that makes pain and sadness and stress go away for a while. In that second when the last tear falls, it feels like everything in the world is perfect. And sometimes we need to think that.

~Stephanie