Tears, Power and Protest

Abstract

Powerlessness and helplessness are among the most basic and destructive human experiences. We all know these feelings and depending on our previous history, health, or constitution they can arouse terror, anger, apathy or the most damaging of the defence mechanisms — denial. They can also arouse the will to challenge fate. We are born with the urge to protest and the potential for power. Life distorts that capacity, and forces us to learn devious ways of expressing distress, or to bury it so deep that we feel ourselves totally powerless. That direct protest is the meaning of the child’s first cry. It is a powerful message which proclaims the child’s sense of her right to exist, take up space and be attended to. The world into which she has exploded is less attractive than the one she was forced into leaving, and which no matter how much she seeks, she will never regain. ‘It’s not fair’, is the passionate assertion that rings through childhood as soon as words are put to feelings. ‘It’s not fair’, has been the source of powerful human movements for freedom, happiness and liberation. So what goes wrong? What sometimes happens in growing up that turns some of us from creatures who battle to have our needs met, who shout and scream with frustration if our existence is denied, into apparently passive, disinterested adults, reluctant to confront issues or use energy creatively?

It is the world’s worst crime its babies grow dull … limp and leaden eyed. Vachel Lindsay