There's a great scene from the 1981 movie Stripes, in which the character played by Bill Murray asks his fellow Army recruits whether anyone cried at the end of the 1957 Disney movie Old Yeller. Of course everyone raises their hands (although some required encouragement). I absolutely cried when I first saw the movie (Old Yeller, not Stripes).
As I've gotten older, I've found that I cry a lot more frequently than I have in the past. If you want to see tears flowing like the Mississippi River, show me the final scenes of Band of Brothers, The Pacific, or Saving Private Ryan. But it's not just old war movies that make me cry. The tears will start flowing even if I watch a short YouTube video from the movie Sea Biscuit. I've even found myself crying at the end of RomComs. I remember finishing up a massive biography of Winston Churchill a few years ago, and reading about Churchill's death made me cry. I recently came across a scene from the movie Hachi: A Dog's Life in which Hachiko the dog is finally reunited, in the afterlife, with his owner, played by Richard Gere (for more about Hachiko, check out my posts, "Dogs Really Are Our Best Friends" and "Trust, Loyalty, and a Story About a Dog"). I swear that I was balling like a baby!
I'm not depressed. I'm not sad. I'm not even pessimistic. I actually consider myself a very positive person, and I think most people would say that about me. So what is going on with me that I seem lo to get more emotional as I get older? I actually looked it up. As it turns out, I'm not alone in my sense that I've become more emotional as I have gotten older. There was a Washington Post article a few years ago exactly on this topic. However, most of the research that I've found on this topic suggests that most older adults actually enjoy high levels of well-being and emotional stability. Older adults are happier (contrary to the stereotype of the "cranky old man"), more positive, and even less emotionally reactive than they were when they were younger.
Some experts in aging have labeled this phenomenon the paradox of emotional well-being in aging. It's a paradox because research also shows that as we age, our physical and cognitive abilities decline. Our social networks get smaller. Our health gets worse. We may experience the death of a spouse or close friends. And yet, we have a more positive outlook, we don't experience dramatic mood swings, and we lose our temper a lot less.
All that research is very interesting, but it still doesn't explain why I seem to cry more at the movies. Actually, after thinking about it and reading about it a lot more, I believe the answer is fairly simple. I think I've become more empathetic as I've gotten older. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It's that ability to place ourselves in someone else's shoes and truly understand (and even experience) what they are feeling. And it doesn't even have to be a real person or even a human being! Sometimes, it's a dog. The website Psychology Today states, "Developing empathy is crucial for establishing relationships and behaving compassionately. It involves experiencing another person’s point of view, rather than just one’s own, and enables prosocial or helping behaviors that come from within, rather than being forced."
There's a common adage that, with age comes wisdom. I do believe that's true. But maybe we should also be saying that with age comes empathy...
No comments:
Post a Comment