One of the wisest things about young children
is that they have no shame or compunction
whatsoever about bursting into tears, perhaps
because they have a more accurate and less
pride-filled sense of their place in the world:
they know they are extremely small beings
in a hostile and unpredictable realm, that
they can’t control much of what is happening
around them, that their powers of understanding
are limited and that there is a great deal
to feel distressed, melancholy and confused
about. Why not then, on a fairly regular basis,
sometimes for only a few moments at a time,
collapse into some highly salutary sobs at
the sheer scale of the sorrow of being alive?
Unfortunately, such wisdom tends to get lost
as we age. We get taught to avoid being, at
all costs, that most apparently repugnant
(and yet in fact deeply philosophical) of
creatures: the cry-baby. We start to associate
maturity with a suggestion of invulnerability
and competence. We imagine it may be sensible
to imply that we are unfailingly strong and
in command of what is going on.
But this is, of course, the height of danger
and bravado. Realising one can no longer cope
is an integral part of true endurance. We
are in our essence and should always strive
to remain cry-babies, that is, people who
intimately remember their susceptibility to
hurt and grief. Moments of losing courage
belong to a brave life. If we do not allow
ourselves frequent occasions to bend, we will
be at great risk of one day fatefully snapping.
We labour under the misapprehension that the
only thing that could justify tears would
be one clear and unambiguous catastrophe.
But that is to forget how many miniscule elements
go wrong every hour, how much supposedly ‘small
things’ can impact us and how extremely
heavy they may end up feeling in a bewilderingly
short time.
When the impulse to cry strikes us, we should
be grown-up enough to consider ceding to it
as we knew how to in the sagacity of our fourth
or fifth years. We might repair to a quiet
room, put the duvet over our heads and give
way to unrestrained torrents at the horribleness
of it all. We easily forget how much energy
we normally have to expend fending off despair;
now at last we can properly allow despondency
to have its way. No thought should be too
dark any more: we are obviously no good. Everyone
is evidently extremely mean. It’s naturally
far too much. Our life is – undoubtedly
– meaningless and ruined. If the session
is to work, we need to touch the very bottom
and make ourselves at home there; we need
to give our sense of catastrophe its fullest
claims.
Then, if we have properly done our work, at
a point in the misery, some idea – however
– minor will at last enter our minds and
make a tentative case for the other side:
we’ll remember that it would be quite pleasant
and possible to have a very hot bath, that
someone once stroked our hair kindly, that
we have one and half good friends on the planet
and an interesting book still to read – and
we’ll know that the worst of the storm is
over.
Despite our adult powers of reasoning,
the needs of childhood constantly thrum within
us. We are never far from craving to be held
and reassured, as we might have been decades
ago by a sympathetic adult, most likely a
parent, who made us feel physically protected,
kissed our forehead, looked at us with benevolence
and tenderness and perhaps said not very much
other than, very quietly, ‘of course’.
To be in need (as it were) of mummy is to
risk ridicule, especially when we are a couple
of meters tall and in a position of responsibility.
Yet to understand and accept one’s younger
longings in fact belongs to the essence of
genuine adulthood. There is in truth no maturity
without an adequate negotiation with the infantile
and no such thing as a proper grown-up who
does not frequently yearn to be comforted
like a toddler.
In sensible households, we should all have
signs, a bit like the sort they have in hotels,
that we can hang on our doors and announce
to passers by that we are spending a few minutes
inside doing something essential to our humanity
and inherently connected to our capacity to
live like a grown-up: sobbing like a lost
child.
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