When we read a sad poem, we feel a certain way- pity, perhaps, or myabe just regret with our own lives. Just like love, pain is also an emotion. And since love is universal, pain should equally universal. Just like they say, ' tears are the universal sign of sadness', I think that pain is just another emotion that everyone has to go through. Why then, does sad poems and love poems give us a certain kind of pleasure, ironically? Could it be the way the poet carves his words into our very souls, by allowing us to enter that person's skin and walk around in it? Iam sure psychologists will have an answer to that- an answer significantly different from that of a poet.
Maybe the human reaction of dealing with pain is by sharing. When we encounter something sad, the burden often grows to a size larger than we can withstand. Do we tend to share it with our friends, distributing the pain and making it easier for everyone to bear? Is sadness a really that complex notion to understand? I believe that the answer is simpler than we think. Yet, unlike other emotions, like happiness, sadness is something we tend to with hold inside us, a monster of an emotion, eating away at our very souls. With sadness comes tears. And this is an even more intriging question- why do we cry when we are sad? Is tears simply sadness in a more tangible form? I've heard saying like, " There's a storm in the heart but it rains out through the eyes" Why? Why does it rain out through our eyes? What makes us cry? And why are some people afraid of crying? I guess I could attempt answering the last question. Friends around us, be it male or female, cry at some point in the life time. But we are ashamed of crying, embarrassed of crying. I guess our environment plays a large role. If we meet friends who admonish crying to the cry babies, then one's natural reaction would be to with hold the tears and cry during one's own private moments. However. if one were to be encouraged to express one's own feelings more openly, I think the person would be able to reflect on his or her own reason's for crying better. Not only is it more healthy, actually. And that's what sadness is all about really- sharing.