M. Beisenherz: Sorry, I’m here privately
Cry uninhibitedly at “Rocky Balboa”: When men cry
Actor Sylvester Stallone as “Rocky Balboa”
© Imago Images
Sometimes our columnists get emotional – in completely inappropriate places. A stewardess notices, his daughter doesn’t.
By Micky Beisenherz
Crying is the cloudburst of the soul. I had a feeling that this emotional crap was about to come for you. However, this pompous picture isn’t entirely off the mark. The uncontrolled flow of tears sometimes catches us completely unprepared and in situations that are not at all inviting. Similar to the laughing attack of those who are otherwise so reserved Susanne Daubner, who couldn’t contain herself while giggling in the “Tagesschau” and will be happy in retrospect that the first report was just a “chemical summit” and not an earthquake in Lebanon or something like that.
“Feelings have a duty of confidentiality,” said the popular philosopher Andrea Berg. But emotions are a fine trickle that gradually erodes the foundation of our composure until, in an unexpected moment, everything collapses or at least breaks out of us. This is how people complain or cry uncontrollably on the morning news.
A few weeks ago, it was really hot days in September, I was driving through the fields of my home with my daughter in an open car and we were listening to music when the playlist switched to Tristan Brusch’s “Baggersee”. A song that radio presenters sometimes say will “really get you in the summer mood.” An interesting perception, as the song is about a young man in the cancer ward who, while the chemo is flowing through the drip into his body, looks weakly through the window at the sky and remembers the beautiful days of his life. And as these lines sound, the daughter closes her eyes slightly in the backlight of the September sun and enjoys the vastness of the rural area, while the father turns away slightly and howls. Afterwards we went into the fields and stole corn.
I cry when I watch sports or blockbuster movies
Was there any acute reason to cry? Not that I know. And yet there is something stored within us that we rarely allow ourselves to pull together in everyday life. A suppressed sentiment. The fear of your own transience? The knowledge of the fragile construct of contentment with occasional bursts of happiness? A late reflection of paternal presence?
How many times have I cried on the plane! Strangely, always with sports or, if you like, clunker films like “Warrior”, “Rocky Balboa” or “Creed”. Strips that are always family dramas in their own way and something in me – be careful! – trigger. As a man in his mid-40s, crying unashamedly has a different meaning. I often lack the social support of long-term millennials who, when in doubt, sometimes translate “Stream” on Instagram for several weeks as a stream of tears for the front camera.
Always difficult: crying in public transport. When the stewardess gives the distraught passenger with the red eyes a bowl of nuts to comfort him or the conductor on the train… No, you don’t have to explain your crying fit to anyone on the train! You can always easily slide it onto, well, any current trip. And similar to the ICE, the cathartic crying often just comes: late. And how good it feels when you just arrive.
When my wife asked me how I could seriously be upset by a song with the banal and, from her point of view, even stupid title “Baggersee”, I realized that sometimes you can cry in anger.