Weep for the World

We need a 'Weep for the World Day' and because we are such a gender specific society we could have a 'Women's Weep for the World Day' and a 'Men's Weep for the World Day'. I think however that if men started weeping, then we would never stop because it has been made quite clear that the woes of the world and the responsibility for them lies firmly at our feet. Then we should weep for that fact. Perhaps I should weep for Wales seeing as its a 'parochial' blog this one, but I feel like weeping for the World. 

We start crying as children and then at the drop of a hat, as if to command, but then we are encouraged to stop 'Paid a crio fy ngwas i' 'Don't cry little man'. Therefore at a certain age we start bottling things up, we learn to put up a front. We cry behind closed doors. We cry for many different reasons. We cry for shame, we weep for a lost love or loved one, We sob when Wales lose at Rugby: well some of us do! The first public exhibition of crying I witnessed was on Cardiff Central Train Station. A man on another platform wearing green wellies was crying, loudly and openly. He was quite dignified about it, straight backed, holding himself in as much as he could but it was a sobbing from the bowels of his diaphragm. The platforms were packed but instead of somebody going over, putting an arm over his shoulder and giving him a hug, it was like a parting of the Red Sea on Platform 2. British Rail might as well have trained a Spotlight on to him. It was British Rail in those days because I am old enough to remember nationalised railways. Maybe he was crying because he knew that the network was about to be privatised. Anyway, an adult crying like that to a young un was quite a profound experience. I think I was quite jealous. I am convinced that people need to weep and wail more. We blame Queen Victoria for many things, we blame Margaret Thatcher for many others. Two women, but women who were not typical of their gender. These women and their influence have been far reaching. We prefer our men to drive trains and behave like slabs of meat and we prefer our women, feminine! So we all know where we are, like. 

So much has happened in this century that we have not collectively wailed and wept for. 9/11, 7/7, the murder of two policewomen in Manchester, the killing of Lee Rigby and now the stabbing of Teacher Anne Maguire.(And these from a Western Perspective only) All these events were very public! So what happens we internalise our grief and then go on Facebook and Twitter and blame the Government and Royal Family. I know, I do it myself. We have to have somebody to blame. We blame ourselves individually. We carry around with us an awful lot of shame on a daily basis but we never blame the collective, the group consciousness. Anyway I think we need a segregated 'Weep for the World Day' unless of course you would feel happy crying in front of the complementary gender. I shall leave you now with Anthony Hopkins who is weeping for Wales and for the World.