Skip to main content

The power of tears

The other day, I visited the dentist. She's my newfound favourite dentist because she not only does her job just by examining teeth and calls it a day, she would further explain and educate me on what she had done to my teeth and plus, she's really nice. But that day, it was a painful visit. The dentist hit a very sensitive part of my gum near the upper front teeth, and as natural as it was, tears started flowing down my cheeks that even the assistant had to wipe them off for me as the dentist was still cleaning my teeth. I told the dentist afterwards, "I'm so sorry I teared. I just... had to. It was so painful." I was still surprised at myself because I never had the intention to cry, it was something beyond my control. It was merely a physiological reaction. Just like how our eyes start to tear when we cut onions. I went home that night thinking so much about tears. I thought about the times when I cried. Why do we cry? Why was this reaction even created?

It is amazing when we start to think about the things that make us cry and what really distinguish those things apart from the things that elicit other milder reaction. What I arrived at that night was how powerful tears are and what they truly represent. While someone was peeking into my teeth with the remote possibility to scream in pain, these tears spoke for it. It is as if our tears represent the words that we cannot speak and they communicate the pain that is just indescribable, as if there is no other way it can be expressed as accurately and as sufficiently. Tears convey the depths and breadths of things which cannot be fully explained and described through words.

Washington Irving's wisdom beautifully captures the whole essence of tears:
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”

I thought about all the times I cried. It is no wonder they are mostly cathartic. Because tears serve this amazing function in which there is no other better way to express certain things, other than crying.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hitam Manis

This is difficult to write, but it's definitely an important one amidst all the conversations we've been having lately. Growing up being brown/Malay wasn't easy, especially when it became ingrained in me that having a darker skin tone by default, is less desired than fairer skin tones. In childhood, I couldn't recall having to endure comments about my skin colour. Thankfully amongst children, these values ascribed to lightness and darkness didn't yet come to the fore. This consciousness became more obvious since secondary school. And it was tough and painful.  I've been in a sports CCA since secondary school and I couldn't really avoid not becoming tanned. What hurts the most was even my peers at that time would make comments about my skin colour without even realising the damage caused from these words. These comments I recall, were sometimes made under the guise of humour. I was called 'budak hitam' (literally means 'black child') and even ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reclaiming my voice

It has been more than 2 years since I published anything on this blog. I have written a few reflections quite abit during this time, but they are mostly in draft versions, probably reflective of the scatteredness of my thought processes, or the ongoing engagement with the topic which has yet found a proper resolve (or is there ever a resolve really?), or just me finding mere words to articulate my thoughts that are waiting to be entertained and possibly verbalised or written. I'm driven to write this post precisely because I can't entirely ignore the nagging voice inside my head, telling me to use writing as a tool to not only express myself, but to reclaim my voice. It is such an insanely noisy world. The constant stream of information from different online platforms not only pull me from various directions, but it spreads my attention too thin that it is impossible to follow one stream of thought, sit on it for awhile, slowly reflect and if possible, articulate it. It is not ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cycles

I found myself stopping in my tracks as soon as I was greeted by a view. There I was. Struck with awe and captivated by the beauty of the full moon. And a large one this time. So full, so bright, so round. Though a moon in its very physical form is full and round, we embrace this moment when we finally bear witness to this true form. Don't we have to see some crescents, quarters and gibbouses before we see the full moon? What a beautiful reminder from nature that it takes a cycle to be able to witness this beauty. And that cycles and processes are important building founding blocks of life. Like the metamorphosis of the caterpillar and the developmental stages of a growing embryo in the womb. Every journey consists of changes and processes. And we trudge along to finally reach to the end point; a beautiful end product, a beautiful long awaited destination and a beautiful final abode. A journey may be interspersed with days which seemed bleak and dark. But there is light at the e...
Post a Comment
Read more