Crying

This is going to date me (and possibly make me sound like I have terrible taste in movies), but I remember watching City of Angels when it came out.  (Actually I had seen the sequel to the original first, and was very confused.  Film depictions of fallen angels always remind me of sociopaths, a la the Meet Joe Black angel of death -- to complete the bad 90s romantic comedies references.)  But in the City of Angels version, the fallen angel asks the Meg Ryan character about crying:

Seth: Why do people cry? 
Maggie: What do you mean? 
Seth: I mean, what happens physically? 
Maggie: Well... umm... tear ducts operate on a normal basis to lubricate and protect the eye and when you have an emotion they overact and create tears. 
Seth: Why? Why do they overact? 
Maggie: [pause] I don't know. 
Seth: Maybe... maybe emotion becomes so intense your body just can't contain it. Your mind and your feelings become too powerful, and your body weeps.  

Here's what a sociopath reader wrote about it:


I think I can recognize it, but I do honestly get confused when a person cries. My sister is always crying during a movie called animal farm. I assume she is sad because I personally know she loves animals, and in that movie a lot of animals are tortured, killed. If I was not aware of her liking animals, I would be a little confused to her crying, because people cry when they laugh, and when they are angry. I always figured she was pissed at the movie, and thus cried. If she did not love animals as obsessively as she did (as in I didn't know her on a personal level), that would be my first conclusion. That makes more sense to me, to be so frustrated or angry, that she would cry. I've seen people so pissed that they cry. I was so frustrated once that I cried, part of it was forced, but I cried nonetheless. Vanessa cried all the time, but I'm not exactly sure why now that I think about it. It may have been anger. People cry due to pain right? Sadness is a form of pain? I think that's what you were saying.

When I watched Passion of the Christ (hilarious movie, also tedious and somewhat redundant), I chuckled, and smiled, and wanted to laugh. Those around me were crying. I heard the sniffles, saw the wiping at their eyes, and naturally I knew they were upset. It did confuse me, I didn't know specifically why they were crying, but they were. It grew annoying very quickly. One time in church when I was visiting family in the east coast the preacher was preaching his bull, and people around me started to convulse, and cry. This confused me more than any other experience of people crying (I was a child btw when this happened). I still can't come to a rational explanation of their crying other than it was fake, and these people didn't want to be the out casts. That's why I did it. I did cry that day, but only after everyone else was at it for a while. I watched my mother, who was crying, I watched those fainting around me, I watched my sister, who was crying. Then I studied her, hard, and tried to think of something that could make me cry. I tried to think of a time that I cried, and all I was able to come up with was when I was in physical pain. So I hurt myself. When no one was paying attention I used the bottom of my palm and pushed harshly upward right underneath my nose, which caused me to tear up. Then I thought of how my sister looks when she cries, looked at everyone else's expression when they were crying, and did that, mixed with the tears I produced because I hit myself. Once everyone stopped, and settled down, I put off the act, and once we left, I was confused, disturbed. I just, in general, don't like church scenarios. The fact that a mass of people can use mob mentality and conform to emotions that I don't think any are actually feeling is beyond me. I remember asking my mother why everyone was crying, and she told me they were feeling the spirit. How? How can you feel something that isn't there? A spirit meant nothing to me because it was not a solid physicality, existing (as in I can see it) thing, so how can you feel for something that isn't there?