I have noticed several public displays of tear-holding- back in the last several weeks by news anchors - (edited)
I have also noticed in myself, having recently learned, finally, to sing, that when I actually hit on the emotion of a song, my voice completely breaks, and I have no control over it. I have also seen this kind of lack of control in the face of an unsuccessful artist I knew, and in the voice of a cousin giving a eulogy for his brother. At the same time, another brother of that cousin gave his eulogy with stoney-voiced calm. The difference between the two brothers was that the stoney-voiced one had a large family and fewer psychological problems, and the artist had dedicated his life to an art with no evidence of success, and no family, and in my own case I have pretty much dedicated my life to art and ideas and don't have a family, so that it makes me think that the shakey/Stoney voiced hing in the face of emotion is about exercise -- meaning that if you constantly exercise your emotions they will be under your control, but if you displace your emotions by practicing artifice (art), then when the real emotions hit you, your muscles will act like someone who has just done 100 push-ups for the first time -- they won't respond to your commands.
The other side of this is that, lately, since I am finally practicing singing all the time, I have realized that if you plow through the emotions each time rather than just stopping because it sounds so out of control, that you slowly get stronger and more in control of your voice.
So all of this is kind of a long winded way of saying just keep practicing and you will succeed. Except that I specifically mean in public and with your raw voice. I imagine this is what wailing was or still is about in cultures where there is a lot of violence and lot of the mourning process is in public, that people get really good and in control at expressing it.
And I think this has also been expressed as, "there are good criers and bad criers," as in you have to know which kind of crier you are -- how your face looks when you cry, especially when you are new in a relationship, because if your partner has not really seen you cry yet and you only know your own crying from the movies, then when he moment comes, you might think you are going to look like Brad Pitt welling up when infact you are going to look like Don Knotts and she is going to run screaming.
There are adult, "at-a-point-of-high-potential-for- emotional- cross- pollination" cries, and there are less adult, "realizing- that-I- am-a- bully-and-that-being- a-bully-can't-be-a-self-identity- and-so- I- have- no-self-identity" cries. But I guess that with practice both can be improved through exercise.
So, inspired by these recent public criers, could there be some kind of platform just for public displays of crying? Maybe the crying could be beautified, not covered up but amplified with video and audio augmentation and artistry to make it easier to stomach for people who are afraid of their own emotion.
OpenEmotion.com-- JesusHChrist, Jan 28 2014 Melissa Harris Perry http://m.youtube.co...h%3Fv%3DXqCIUyhYg2s [JesusHChrist, Jan 28 2014] Zain Asher http://www.dailymai...ion-best-actor.html [JesusHChrist, Jan 28 2014] Crying http://www.faithit....ionship-disability/ [JesusHChrist, Jan 28 2014] news anchor fights back tears http://uproxx.com/s...tt-on-sportscenter/ [JesusHChrist, Jan 06 2015] I think maybe the best thing is to not try not to cry and simply sing the song, or speak, or whattever while crying. Trying to hold back crying makes it burst through. Some people are cryers and some people arn't, and I'm not sure your theorizing has reached the final conclusion. The cousin you mention whose voice didn't break probably is not a cryer. If someone is a cryer then they should just cry, and I think openemotion.com is a good idea to make crying more mainstream.-- rcarty, Jan 28 2014 //notoriously stultified in white male paternalistic culture//
This premise is from a hundred years ago*, when people still believed in psychoanalysis. Please try to keep up.
*I mean this literally; Somerset Maugham, for example, would have nodded approvingly.-- pertinax, Jan 29 2014 TLDR: //could there be some kind of platform just for public displays of crying?//
Try leading with this instead of //mixed race female news anchors//, because //the promised conversation on race and sex that we are supposed to be having// is already happening, but you have to look for it. To summarize: there's oppressive injustice where you live that you're unaware of and haven't bothered to learn about because you're not oppressed. [-]
//video and audio augmentation and artistry to make it easier to stomach// So basically you want to auto-tune the ranting homeless person on the street corner. That's the right amount of horrifying for a modern art piece.-- sninctown, Jan 30 2014 The crying response has multiple causes.
Factors in more frequent / easier triggered crying (while speaking or singing) include stress and age (as I get older it happens more often).
I was raised not to be afraid to show my emotions, so have a fair amount of practice, but aging is definitely a factor. Not sure why.
I cry at a good truck commercial.-- normzone, Jan 06 2015 Is there a difference between someone in a situation, with emotion, and crying and one whom is showed a portrayal which invokes an emotion? The first has real investment and the second, although maybe of some benefit, is contrived, a Pavlov response.
The reality is, the emotion is as only as good as the investment. If you can fight the crying, the emotion, baggage, ties weren't strong enough.-- wjt, Jan 06 2015 I disagree. Not that I'm any good at concealing emotion. But some persons have tighter controls than others. This does not diminish their emotions any.-- normzone, Jan 07 2015 random, halfbakery