Poll: Isn't crying about the deceased pointless?

[holy_secret]

Now before you go all "evil wannabe-manly guy" on me, please listen:

I understand that being sad about dead people has its right to exist, as you can never see someone again you maybe liked or loved. It's just there to relieve the stress of bearing with that.
Still, that begs the question:

Except for you(and people you're crying with) maybe feeling better, does it make any sense? It surely does not reverse the situation or anything like that, sometimes I even feel like it's really stupid to do that, because the dead person surely wouldn't want you to be sad, so why the hell do we do this?
Why do we almost mandate that people must be sad when someone dies? And yes, it's also a cultural thing to a point. If I am not crying at a funeral(which doesn't mean I didn't love them) then everybody calls me out for that and calls me heartless and the like. Why do we continue this trend in culture? Your parents almost teach you that you have to be sad, and case in point, it would also be sad for people without that, yes, but not that sad. It's just like getting angry at certain things, it's also a part of the education how strong you react to something, so why do we make it worse than it actually would be?

That's the things about emotions. They don't make sense. They are not supposed to either.

I don't get sad when someone I love die. I get a piece of my soul ripped out of me.
When I start crying, I also start processing it. So I would say at least for me it's a way to get control over my emotions and myself.

You have never lost anyone really important to you, this is obvious.

You may have lost grandparents, maybe, but no one you were really very close to.

I am happy that you have not ever had to experience true loss.

May you never be forced to understand what it feels like.

Amen.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Yes, crying is usually pointless for just about anything, but sometimes it cannot be helped. It probably falls under the context of one of the conditions that make people "human," much like laughter does not really accomplish anything either. I'm fully accepting that both of my parents will one day be dead, yet that most likely won't make any difference to my emotions when they do die.

Reminds me of a story. Many weeks ago I met a woman on the internet. She had many of the same interests I had, was very physically attractive, laughed at my jokes, lived relatively close, and found me to be attractive as well. She had a boyfriend, but we planned to meet up and have sex. It was very, very unlikely to actually happen and I understood she could change her mind at any point. The next day I made multiple attempts to contact her again, but to no avail. I later happened upon her online again and she explained that it wouldn't work out. I said I was okay with that.

Well, considering that was the closest I had ever gotten to physical sexual contact with a woman, I was crushed. I didn't even realize it at the time. However for the last few weeks, any spare moment spent alone I thought about nothing else, I hung my head, and cried like a *****. It can't be helped. I know there's no way I can make it work, nothing I can say to bring her back, nothing in my life has really changed for the worse, and that it was a million-to-one shot anyways. But still, I lie awake at night whining to myself about it. Such is the human condition.

 

[Gluzzbung]

Isn't life pointless? (If we're gonna be all philosphical and stuff)

 

[William Ossiss]

a funeral is supposed to be a celebration. not something where you go to bawl out your eyes and be sad because you lost someone.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Yes it is, but its an emotion so we respond to it. Same as getting angry at a computer or when your team loses. All pointless, but then emotion is pointless in itself.

 

[Yopaz]

Of course crying is pointless. Do I do it? Yes. I am sad. I'm not doing it to accomplish something. It's pointless just like spending the day playing a game is pointless.

 

[esperandote]

You do it for yourself not for the deseased, pretty much like the funeral, the deseased doesn't mind/know if you throw him/her on the back yard. I just recently lost a nephew he was about to turn 1 year, first grandchild for my mom. He had a corrective hearth surgery and didn't came out of intensive care, he had several heart attacks, it was brutal. He was the cutest little thing. *tears*

 

[El Poncho]

Only one person I was close to in my life has died and I cried at the funeral but never anywhere else.

I like the Buddhist view on death and suffering.

 

[Denamic]

It's a pointless waste of time, but it's a reactionary response we usually can't help.

 

[Jadak]

Isn't crying about anything pointless? I wasn't aware crying was supposed to be a productive effort.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

1: Incorrect use of the phrase "begs the question" in the OP

2: Heaven forbid anyone do anything that isn't logical and functional. Yes, you do not necessarily have to feel bad if someone dies. But if you do and you cry, then I see absolutely nothing infuriating enough there to write forum based rant, seemingly functionless though the crying may be.

 

[Andrew Patourel]

Crying is firstly a autonomic response, its not something we consciously decide to do or not, I've spent too much time at funerals lately but not all brought tears to me. However yesterday I stood in a place my father and I had spent a lot of time as I was growing up and broke down, with no warning.

It truly does serve a point though, much like laughter, crying is a way to expend emotion, to let it pass through and leave you refreshed. We need to expel our inner turmoil in order to keep absorbing the new data we receive daily.

So maybe the action of expelling salt water through holes in our heads is fairly useless adaptation, but the physical representation of sorrow or loss is there to explain our situation and and needs to the society in which we live, we're social animals and we communicate in more ways than language.

 

[The Lugz]

i like physics.

really, when i was younger death bothered me allot but the more i thought on it the more i realized, you cant actually die.
you simply return to the stardust you were originally contrived from
your energy will de unify and effect other things in the world eventually

 

[___________________]

If I think a person either goes to hell or heaven after they die or if I think there is nothing else after one dies then it is pointless. If a person goes to hell it's because they deserve it defeating the purpose of crying over them, if a person goes to heaven they're better off and if there is nothing afterwards the person won't suffer and they have stopped suffering in the shit stained cess pit that is society. Even then we will cry because it's a natural reaction to stressful situations. We are selfish creatures by nature, we don't cry because they died, we cry because we don't have those people in our lives anymore. Also, we are vain and we hate not being in control of everything around us.

 

[Zap Happy]

No one gets mad at you for not crying at a funeral. Or at least no one in my family ever has.

 

[crudus]

I haven't cried in a good long while. I take that back, I cried a few months back at the end of a game. Prior to that I haven't cried in a good while. I just think there are better things to do than cry. I don't think a funeral is a time to mourn a loss, but to celebrate a life. Funerals should be full of laughter, but I always get the worst looks when I say that at the funeral.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

Isn't VERB pointless?

Answer; yes.

 

[Alphavillain]

The schism between what humans know is logical and what they feel in their hearts is one too great to be explained by lesser men such as myself.

 

[Rathands]

...The worst (or perhaps just most unexplainable) is religious people who believe in Heaven who also find deaths and the loss of a loved one a tragedy. Its incredibly selfish and all about "oh ill never get to see that person again", when really you should be like "wow lucky bastard he gets to go to heaven with our lord im so happy for them, and in due time ill be reunited with them!"...

The latter is kind of jarring though - if you attend a religious funeral and don't believe in a God yourself; everyone's happy around you and has made their peace with the fact that said person is dead, but all you can think about is how their wake is really the last thing you'll ever do together.


I'm confused why you needed to ask this question to be honest - unless you have a learning disability that makes it difficult for you to understand others (and even then, I know people with autism who understand why people cry over death), it just seems strange that you're trying to analyse it logically.

Also, am I the only one who's a little disturbed by the amount of people who never cry according to the poll? I understand some people are much more stoic than I but NEVER? It's a natural response and sometimes involuntary, how can you not even sniffle, not even once at the death of someone close to you?

 

[LilithSlave]

because the dead person surely wouldn't want you to be sad,

Considering how selfish a lot of people are, I doubt that.