JASON SILVA: There's a great line by the philosopher Alain
de Botton where he says, we don't
cry because something is sad.
We cry because something is more beautiful
than we expected it to be.
So essentially, we are moved to tears
in order to address, to correct an imbalance,
a cognitive dissonance between what we expected
and what we actually found, to realize
that what you found was more conducive to your needs
than what you thought you were looking for,
the sort of the serendipity of melancholy,
of aesthetic experience, when it feels like something
is unexpectedly so much more moving than you thought
it would be.
This is such a mystery.
These moments in which we are moved
to the point of tears, that define
our lives, these moments of aestheticized,
italicized experience, these moments
pregnant with significance, these moments
of revelatory ecstasy, ecstatic signification.
It's such a cool idea.
I love it when music does it to me, when theater does it
to me, when films do it to me, when
staring into the iris of a lover's eye does it to me.
You get the goosebumps.
You get the shivers down your spine.
These moments.
Mmm.
You don't cry because something is sad.
You cry because it is more beautiful
than you expected it to be.