A tear is a universal sign. Since ancient times, philosophers and scientists have tried to explain weeping as part of a shared human language of emotional expression. But, in fact, a tear on its own means nothing. As they well up in our eyes, or dribble down our cheeks, the meanings... of those salty droplets can only be tentatively inferred by others, and then only when they know much more about the particular mental, social, and narrative contexts that gave rise to them.
We cry in sadness, grief and mourning, but also from joy and laughter. Some are moved to tears of pity by human suffering; others have wept the enraged tears of the oppressed. A tear-streaked cheek might be produced by nothing more than a yawn or a chopped onion. The Victorian journalist Harriet Martineau had tears of intellectual ecstasy running down her cheeks as she translated the ponderous tomes of the French sociologist Auguste Comte. A friend of mine, a steam enthusiast, told me that when he first saw the record-breaking locomotive, the Mallard, at the National Railway Museum, he cried. A tear is a universal sign not in the sense that is has the same meaning in all times and all places. It is a universal sign because it can signify just about anything.
e.mail by my friend Jim Vouganis
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