As we grow older, we find ourselves more easily moved to tears. When we see a child singing with innocent effort, or a young person struggling to become better, or even a dog chasing a toy with desperate devotion — we feel our eyes fill.
It is often said that this happens because experience deepens our empathy, or because aging weakens our emotional restraint. Yet a small footnote must be added: we do not sympathize with just anything. Not every act of earnestness can move us.
For example, when an older, powerful politician works hard, we do not cry. We are only touched when someone below us strives bravely. Even the elderly can move us, but only when they are dying, impoverished, or otherwise seen as beneath us. Tears, after all, always flow downward.
There is another condition as well: the object of our tears must lie beyond our reach. No matter how much we are moved, we never offer advice or lend a hand. To interfere would only spoil the beauty of our own tears. Perhaps this is why we love to weep at things on a screen.
From this, one can finally see why extraterrestrials have never come to Earth. Far more advanced than humanity, they must be gazing down at us, saying to one another, “Lately, we’ve become rather sentimental…,” while quietly watching our earnest little species — and feeling deep content.
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