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Crying

robinwe.is

41–50 of 260 posts

Re: Crying

#42

> I've always considered myself to be a bit of a crybaby No, that's some ridiculous amount of crying. I wonder if it's severe depression or Pseudobulbar affect or some hormonal disorder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudobulbar_affect

What's your baseline? Your own crying frequency?

If you were emotionally honest, and genuinely logged every time you were frustrated, would we be playing arm chair data scientist saying "this person has some major anger issues!"

Re: Crying

#43
It's amazing how much variability there is in how much people cry. Also, the intensity obviously varies a lot: I've never cried for longer than maybe 5 minutes.

Personally, I'm tempted to start a similar log but for the exact opposite reason: I cry so little that I don't remember the last time I did, and I would like to.

Re: Crying

#44
Disney movies.

Literally every single Disney movie gets me to cry. Usually towards the end, around the climax when the soundtrack let the harps and violins kick in.

Not sure if it's me or Disney has some special Crying Department which meticulously orchestrates a crying storyboard.

Re: Crying

#45

Disney movies. Literally every single Disney movie gets me to cry. Usually towards the end, around the climax when the soundtrack let the harps and violins kick in. Not sure if it's me or Disney has some special Crying Department which meticulously orchestrates a crying storyboard.

> Not sure if it's me or Disney has some special Crying Department which meticulously orchestrates a crying storyboard.

My money is on a Crying Department. The entire business of Disney is in creating and exploiting emotions.

Re: Crying

#46

Edit: I have retracted this post; it came across in a way that I did not intend it to. Thank you to those of you who explained the response I received.

Unfortunately, now that you've retracted it, we'll never learn from it one way or the other. :(

Re: Crying

#47

Disney movies. Literally every single Disney movie gets me to cry. Usually towards the end, around the climax when the soundtrack let the harps and violins kick in. Not sure if it's me or Disney has some special Crying Department which meticulously orchestrates a crying storyboard.

In Creativity Inc. they describe specifically going through story beats for maximum emotional impact. Disney movies apparently adopted Pixar's methods, so actually you're not far off with the Crying Department thing.

Re: Crying

#48
post #13

I am a big burly guy with a beard - and I get overwhelmed and cry regularly. Not even from sadness, just from general emotion. For example last night I watched the trailer for Overwatch[1] and got so excited I started tearing up. I don't know why, anything that triggers ANY sort of strong emotion in me brings it on. Always has. My wife makes fun of me for it. I don't see anything wrong with it. [1] https://www.youtub…

I think that's a great trait. Bearded guy here, I get the same thing from certain songs. I can't hear them or sing them without choking up. I attribute it to the musician's bardic gift.

Re: Crying

#49
post #13

I am a big burly guy with a beard - and I get overwhelmed and cry regularly. Not even from sadness, just from general emotion. For example last night I watched the trailer for Overwatch[1] and got so excited I started tearing up. I don't know why, anything that triggers ANY sort of strong emotion in me brings it on. Always has. My wife makes fun of me for it. I don't see anything wrong with it. [1] https://www.youtub…

Since we all seem to be in a sharing mood...

Also a guy -- no beard -- but (and I'm not joking here)... I watched that exact trailer just now and teared up a little.

As for movies, I have two examples: Up (pure emotion) and The Fountain -- the scene towards the end where he talks to the high priest and Clint Mansell's music takes over.

For me, I think it's generally sort of really EPIC things that do it. Really huge scales also tend to do it, for example some of the star size comparisons, or David Deutsch's talk about relativistic jets[1], or just contemplating the fact that some black holes swallow a solar mass per day.

Sometimes it's just "beauty", e.g. I couldn't help tearing up when Carolyn Porco showed the "Saturn Eclipse"[2] picture in her Ted Talk[3]. Some of that, I think, was because of the realization that we humans had actually sent a thing out there to take that picture.

(Btw, I think I'm generally considered a bit of a cold fish among my friends/acquaintances, FWIW. Humans are weird.)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQliI_WGaGk

[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Saturn_e... (WARNING: Image is HUGE!)

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usqdjsr6Vw (I won't link you to the exact time because the video deserves to be seen its entirety. If you really want to skip, skip to 15m15s.)

Re: Crying

#50
I almost never cry but I view it as a problem with the way I deal with stress, which is usually to get angry or withdraw. Recent research has shown that veterans with PTSD who have a "tough guy" attitude recover at a slower rate than veterans with a more self-compassionate attitude, which includes allowing oneself to feel negative emotions and express them.
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