Philosophy of Tears

Recently, I was hearing a song made by the great Eric Clapton entitled, tears in heaven. This song is undoubtedly a legend. The story behind the music is very moving, and could bring tears for those who heard the song. However, the title itself bring a paradox, tears in heaven. If heaven is generally understood as the termination of tears, how can we say there is tears in heaven? Or can we say that in heaven is not a termination of tears in the sense of happiness (Hapiness can also bring tears) but the termination of tears of tragedy, tears that are coming down as the result of deep agony and pain. 

Diving deeper into the idea of tears, definitely, when we cry, and as tears drop to the ground, it is easy for us to quickly associate all those things as a pure emotional act. And by being emotional, we can say that is really in the other side or opposite spectrum from what we call thinking. Tears are all about human emotion. Is that true? One philosopher by the name of Jermome Neu make a very interesting comment as he argue that we cry because we think and when our tears drop, it is an intellectual activity. This idea really is phenomenal since frequently, we relate the notion of tears with mourning or grieving but never of thinking. Neu also pointed out that Indian elephant, Monkey and even cat can also produce tears. Basically, the function of tears (human & animal) is to protect ears from various irritation and because of some psychological mechanism responding to the external stimulus.

Interestingly, quoting William James, Neu show how actually tears does not happened because we are sad but we sad because tears comes out, it is a reverse order! Because of something happened, we perceived it, then we cry and as we realize that we are crying, we feels sad. From this order, we can see how emotion is the last result of realizing the tears that are slowly coming out from our eyes. However, James theory cannot be applicable for all the case since someone could feel really sad even without tears. But, we can perhaps think that without certain rational idea of what constitutes as sad, it won't effect our emotion and hence, the tears won't come out. Take for instance in the case of attending the funeral service of someone we do not know. Probably our tears won't come out as much as we are in the funeral of someone we know dearly. Why? Simply because our reason cannot traced the memories of being with that person which can affect our emotion and consequently produce tears. The only reason we  might cry at that moment is because we look at the tears of others and we also realize with a sober mind, we are attending the funeral service, a place of great sadness! (As oppose to the ballroom for wedding ceremony).

From above exploration at least we can draw a conclusion that tears is not the sign of weakness rather tears sign of strength as tears are related to the activity of thinking. Those who cry lot cannot be said as less intellect for tears are not expressing emotion more than expressing thought. The great actor that can produce tears is not the actor who can manipulate his emotion but an actor who use his mind, and can imagine that he is really in uneasy situation and hence, the emotion will follow afterwards. I am not sure about this but I bet, the actor who are good in producing tears must have a strong IQ not just EQ. Actor not just only imitator, they are genius (Rowan Akitson is one of the example. His saddest quotes in relation to tears: "I love to walk in the rain because no one see me crying").

The whole discussion of tears remind me of Maria Kalman in her philosophy book who says, "If you need to cry, you should cry." This is really against the insane advice of a parents to their boys, man cannot cry! If tears are product of mind, why can not we cry? It is like saying that we need to stop on thinking in a very broad sense. In fact, naturally, when we perceived something as related to the idea of what constitutes something to be cried about, we should not try to hold our tears. Tears, is a sign of thinking. Tears, also helps to tell us it is safe for us to release our emotion for behind every tears, there are reason behind it. From here, It is safe for us to say with confidence that God does not just feel but knows every reason behind our tears. Yes, beside of His omniscience for sure, He perfectly knows the reason behind tears for the reason that our tears are not unreasonable but reasonable.