A friend’s wife has many good qualities, but when she says, “Isn’t. That. Cute!!!” I have to admit that it does make me cringe. She squirms at a dead bird on the street: but quickly recovers, and seems able to handle wartime casualties without much effort. She just looks away.
My uneasiness is not just a “guy thing.” I’ve watched other women grow weary of her bubbly veneer: they may try to move her to a deeper layer, but soon resign to themselves to a limited success.
And sentimentality is certainly not confined to women. I know a man who blubbers into his beer when songs about Mama play on the jukebox, but goes home to ignore his children, abuse his dog, and scorn his wife night after night. But he thinks he's got a soft heart.
Emotions that are enjoyed because they are “easy come, easy go” are fine if you know what you’re doing, not so fine if your emotional responses to the world are confined to those that cost you nothing.
Sadness doesn’t cost much compared to grief. For example, let's say I pity the homeless guy panhandling for spare change. While it may motivate me to give him a dollar or two, I must be honest with myself about whether I’m willing to donate time to work on the larger issues. If I congratulate myself for poking a few dollars through a slit in my car window, it’s rank sentimentality.
Another example is referenced in the opening anecdote. "Cute" doesn’t cost anything, but real beauty can sometimes be very disturbing. Great music, great literature can leave you altered, disturbing your status quo.
The contrast? Another friend shared with me the story of his father’s dying. When he finished, we were both silent for a while. He sighed, searched my face to be sure I was with him, and then he summarized the experience (or the story): “It was a terrible beauty”.
He had been altered; he was not sentimental.
Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who feels he must rationalize his emotions.
David Borenstein
Manipulating others or myself through feelings that are easily touched because they are easily discarded, safe (conventional, cliché-driven) and/or cheap (cost me nothing personally).