Conversations For Transformation:
Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
Conversations For Transformation
Essays By Laurence Platt
Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
And More
Moved To Tears
Novato, California, USA
October 1, 2006
This essay,
Moved To Tears,
is the companion piece to
Real Men Cry.
I am indebted to Dr Robert Lee "Bob" Culver who inspired this
conversation.
At some point in my life it started happening. It never happened
before. Now it happens from time to time. When it first happened I
didn't know what was happening to me or why.
I'll be doing whatever it is I'm doing: talking with
my children,
driving along in my car, sitting at my desk, out hiking in the woods -
you know, just living my life. My eyes mist over and brim until
tears fall. I'm crying for no discernible reason. Normally I've assumed
tears imply unhappiness. Or, trying to come up with another more
plausible explanation, I've wondered if something not consciously
known sabotages me. But neither of those
interpretations
jibe with the accompanying sensation I'll have of ... well ...
ecstasy.
More than that, whenever I'm with you I cry - at least once. In the
midst of the deep fulfillment, richness, and
privilege
of our friendship, I look at you ... and all taps, spigots, and faucets
open, gushing to the max. All levees break.
Why? It doesn't make any sense. I'm embarrassed. Yet when I look at the
totality of the experience I see it comes from a place of heart and
integrity. Whatever it is, it's real. Indeed, there's even
something courageous about it.
The last time it happened I had just returned home after going out for
dinner with
my son Joshua
when you contacted me.
He was sitting on the bed watching a movie wondering why his father has
tears streaming down his cheeks ...
I told him: "Josh, I'm OK. I'm just very, very happy.".
I don't know why I cry when I'm with you, and I do. I know you know
I've got that going on when I'm with you, and I know, finally, I don't
have to not be this way around you.
As for what's happening to me when this is going on, as for what this
experience really is, it was when I allowed the experience to be, when
I allowed myself to experience the experience and not
resist
it that I got what it really is.
I got this is being moved to tears. It's something essentially
human. It's not something which only happens to adults. Children, too,
can be moved to tears although they may not yet have the context for it
or the language to articulate it. In fact children have an easier time
of it. They've not yet had time to build up barriers to vulnerability
and tenderness as adults have.
My friend Bob who has the amazing ability to lay hands on and heal some
of the diseases deemed incurable by doctors suggested to me being moved
to tears is an experience with two components:
1)
When we experience something that's absolutely true for us;
2)
When we discover just how much we love someone or something.
You've got to give something up to be that open. You've
got to be willing to be big enough and receptive enough to be deeply
touched by the truth in someone or something. This isn't found on the
agenda of a jock nor of the macho type (female or
male), nor of someone who strives to keep it all together.
When you really get in touch with that which is absolutely true for
you, when you really discover how much you love someone or something,
it will knock you on your ass. Tears are a natural component of such a
revelation. Ecstasy is the baseline sensation of getting in touch with
that truth, with that love. Letting be is the key to
allowing it to occur for you. Generosity creates the space in which
others are comfortable and safe to experience being moved to tears
around you.
So if you see me moved to tears don't add anything and don't take
anything away. I'm OK. I'm finally young enough to have childlike
aspirations and big enough to love you deeply enough to have tears in
public.