Laughing and Weeping

PBA, or PseudoBulbar Affect, is one of the stranger symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis and other neurologic maladies (such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's).This is the inclination, sometimes without reason, sometimes with little reason, to suddenly burst into laughter or tears. I do not say that I have PBA. I do say, however, that I am much more inclined to laugh or to cry than I used to be, though I think this is more a symptom of older age and a softer heart.

In my life, it may be said that I have tended to be rather reserved or guarded (the fault of my father, I'm sure). There was a day when I could not understand people who would cry during a movie, for instance. It is a surprise, therefore, to find myself in tears nowadays while viewing a sad scene in a movie. Last night, for instance, I was watching A Christmas Carol (the '80s version with George C. Scott), and found myself weeping over poor Tiny Tim, over the ownerless crutch in the chimney corner, over the Spirit's pointed scolding of Scrooge for his hard-heartedness and lack of charity.

"Man," said the ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!"

Yup, that made me cry.

Perhaps it has something to do, as well, with the callous, unkind times in which we live. It seems that the Ghost may as well have been talking to a certain American president.