Do you get more sentimental as you grow older?

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Lately I've noticed that as I've gotten older, I've become more and more emotional. Before, I didn't much like sentimental songs, movies, books, etc. Nowadays they're the ones I love the most. I cry a lot more. I cried when watching The Iron Giant and Shrek. I cried when I was listening to "Protection" by Massive Attack and for the first time paid attention to the lyrics. I cried at the end of Mary Poppins, whene the father finally realizer what a jerk he had been. Previously, when the radio was playing a ballad, I changed the station, but nowadays I turn the volume up. And so on.

Has this happened to anyone else?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 18 April 2005 16:59 (twenty years ago)

I've always had as much sentiment as anything else, though I find that the tempering with cynicism is one of those necessary things. A bit like Peanuts for many years, I'd figure. An excess of both would be distressing.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

A man gets to reflectin' on his life, as time passes, as the sun moves further west across the sky of his life. Take flowers, fr'instance. Never thought much about 'em when I was a young feller, but now sometimes I'll just pull my car over and sit in a field, picking 'em up, and the damn things bring tears to my eyes. Now some of you folk might think of that as womanly, but goddammit, there's something of the essence of life in those damn things. Life's like a flower, when it opens, and finally as the light goes out and the stars come up the reveal the heavens above, well that flower just goes on an' closes up. Mere thought of that makes a man well up, and I'll come to blows with anyone who thinks that's goddamned sentimental. Nothin' sentimental about an old man settin' in a field cryin' into a patch of marigolds.

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

Yup. As I got into my late twenties, I started to embrace things that I'd dismissed as "sentimentality". ("Protection" is a beautiful song.) I'm still a cynical fuck, though.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

Not really but I did soften up a lot once I finally got into a relationship.

― $V£N! (blueski), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

How old are you, Tuomas?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

I have always been a big baby.

― luna (luna.c), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

I can't even tell you how many Behind the Music episodes I've cried at.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

I felt pretty bad for the clone of Trip that only lived for a week or so in yesterdays Enterprise.

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

I'm 25.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:10 (twenty years ago)

Several weeks ago - and this should tell you how ridiculous I am - I cried at an episode of Bernie Mac.

BERNIE. MAC.

― luna (luna.c), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:11 (twenty years ago)

Yikes!

I'm not sure if I'm more sentimental or just less inclined to pretned that I'm not.

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

I noticed that I got a lot more emotional and sentimental about four or five years ago, when I would have been about 22-23 or so. I'm not entirely sure why - maybe it was just the way my life was changing at that time that made me so.

― caitlin (caitlin), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

I love Bernie Mac.

― Trip Maker (Sean Witzman), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

I saw U2 a couple of weeks ago and BONO brought a SMALL BOY up onstage, and I swear to god I felt my eyes water up, even when some dude behind me shouted, "Toss 'im into the pit, Bono!"

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:15 (twenty years ago)

Albert Finney in 'The Browning Version' made me a little misty.

― andy --, Monday, 18 April 2005 17:27 (twenty years ago)

Right around 25 I got more sentimental. By age 31 it has turned into a pretty solid "that's life" or "isn't life weird?" Nothing really makes me very sad as overthinking seems to have obliterated my attachment to many things and ideas/concepts that once meant something to me. I guess that's pretty sad to some, but not to me. I prefer it this way.

― Rocker For Light (on a Bad Brains kick) (Eleventy-Twelve), Monday, 18 April 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

I tear up during certain advertisements. Never did that before I hit my late twenties... So yeah, I guess I have gotten more sentimental.

― ianinportland (ianinportland), Monday, 18 April 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

I think it's possibly to do with accepting the way that the world exerts its influence on us as we get more experienced - maturity, if you will. As a teenager I was just so desperate not to let any emotion happen to me without full prior analysis, and certainly not to display anything to my peers or family that could possibly be used to exert pressure on me for any reason. It's sort of nice to be more comfortable with getting wibbly now, even if it does sometimes involve cynical manipulation by media.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 09:24 (twenty years ago)

I've never not been sentimental. In many ways it has been my undoing.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

I agree with what Liz said, as a teenager I definitely used to hold up stronger walls between me and the world, nowadays I'm secure enough with myself that I don't need that much protection.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 09:40 (twenty years ago)

i used to think i was TUFF and that sentimentality was for GURLZ. now i don't give a shit.

― brody the country girl dalle (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 10:35 (twenty years ago)

What Marcello said.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 10:49 (twenty years ago)

I'm substantially less sentimental than when I was younger...and I wasn't particularly sentimental then.

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 10:56 (twenty years ago)

More.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

More here too. I don't want to generalise from personal experience, but I don't think people have fully-developed senses of em/sympathy until they've got through adolescence. Having a proper, grown up relationship helps too I think.

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 11:16 (twenty years ago)

More, although less so than when I was in my early 30s, I think. I think I'm moving on from becoming more sentimental to becoming a crusty old fuck.

― RS_LaRue (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 11:20 (twenty years ago)

a lot more. i cried last night.

― stelfox, Tuesday, 19 April 2005 11:28 (twenty years ago)

I've always been pretty sentimental. But I think I am getting more so. By the time I am 50 I will be a puddle of emotions.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 11:59 (twenty years ago)

i watched 'guess whos coming to dinner' on a plane the other week, having thought 'meh' the first time i saw it. this time, when everyone's reconciled at the end, i was bawling like a baby. but hey, i cried at barbershop 2 on a plane once.

― stevie (stevie), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 12:47 (twenty years ago)

more definitely. fuck, i nearly teared up at a goddamn frank gifford bio on tv last night. at this rate, i'll have tears constantly streaming down by the time i hit 60.

― ()ops (()()ps), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)

As near as I can make out, sentimentality is caused by the tendency of the brain to associate ideas. It is much the same thing as a Pavlovian response.

In the case of sentimentality, the sentiments are old feelings of happiness or pleasant associations. Therefore a dirty, faded old hat might be associated with a beloved person. Or a pebble may become associated with a vacation trip with your lover. Ditto for "they're playing our song." A sentimental story is one which triggers old emotions, by mimicking the circumstances when those emotions arose.

That is why it is easy for people growning older to become more sentimental - they have lived longer and felt more, and have many more random associations by which those old feelings may be recalled.

As for me, I rigorously eschew attaching my feelings to random objects. I despise it when it happens in myself. (I am more charitable toward others in this respect.) However, I can almost always be suckered into crying at sentimental movies, even as I am upbraiding the screenwriter and making fun of the plot in the rational part of my brain.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:57 (twenty years ago)

What Marcello and Dr C said. But in a weird way - things that are actually meant to tug at heartstrings pretty much leave me cold, whereas the smell of some rancid algae-ridden lake on a hot summers day will set me off.

(This is an extreme example)

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

I am nearly 32 and find myself shedding a tear at "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" or merely watching my dog sit in the sun.

― Rand D. Butterstein, Tuesday, 19 April 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

things that are actually meant to tug at heartstrings pretty much leave me cold

me too.

okay then, how are we differentiating between sentimentality and sympathy/empathy? because i think as i get older i care less and less about people's problems (unless they're real problems).

― brody the country girl dalle (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 22:03 (twenty years ago)

six months pass...

This happens to more and more often. A couple of months ago I was at work, and "Feed the Birds" off the Mary Poppins soundtrack was playing on my CD player, and suddenly I just felt a tremendous sadness and wanted to cry. I suppressed the tears, though, because I work in an open office with several people around me, and I didn't want them to see me cry - especially because it would've been kinda hard to explain to them why I was doing so. Last week I was at the cinema watching The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and even though I'd seen the film before and knew what was gonna happen, the ending still made me cry.

I think what's causing this is that the final remnants of these sort of psychic barriers around me, set up by both my socialization as a man and by personal experience, are falling down. Maybe when I get older things'll get more steady, but at the moment I don't really mind being this weepy. It feels liberating.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 30 October 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

"Feed the Birds" does that to me too, T. But it's done that consistantly since I was a little kid.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Sunday, 30 October 2005 20:58 (twenty years ago)

I just want to say at this point that I love you, brothers in tears.

― moley, Sunday, 30 October 2005 21:29 (twenty years ago)

(I have always been moved to tears by acts of benevolence and gentle beauty, and almost never by blatant manipulation or violence. The death of Volodya in Lukas Moodysson's 'Lilja-4-ever'and his return at the end of the film actually made it impossible for me to sleep for a few nights after I saw it, and for about a month afterward whenever I thought of the film I'd find the old tearducts a little leaky.) (embarrassed to admit)

I think I've actually grown so jaded that most artistic depictions of depravity have lost any shocking or affecting power. But selfless displays of sincerity slay me… as I see it, there's an infinite capacity for sentiment invoked by goodness in the world.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Sunday, 30 October 2005 21:51 (twenty years ago)

http://kai.iks-jena.de/livejournal/bilder/04-11-03-emu.jpg

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 30 October 2005 22:01 (twenty years ago)

i've always been sentimental. the emu, however, is without pity. to stare into his eyes is to know the inevibility of death. and to know a beak pecking your face.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 30 October 2005 22:05 (twenty years ago)

tick tick...tick tick

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 30 October 2005 22:06 (twenty years ago)

Not only without pity, but without mercy too - see how they take lunch from a small child's hand in the national parks of Australia.

― moley, Sunday, 30 October 2005 22:09 (twenty years ago)

there's something about that emu pic which makes me indescribably happy. he/she just looks so badass!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 30 October 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

I challenge any of you to watch "Jurassic Bark" from Futurama all the way to the very end and not leak saltwater. That episode punches me in the gut every damn time, even tho I know what's coming.

I know I'm gonna blubber when I get round to seeing Serenity :/

― Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 30 October 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

it's like the first shot of the good the bad and the ugly

― gear (gear), Sunday, 30 October 2005 22:14 (twenty years ago)

yes

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 30 October 2005 22:29 (twenty years ago)

I cry at Gershwin tunes....and I've been talking a lot about "the Great War" lately.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Monday, 31 October 2005 03:40 (twenty years ago)

I've always been sappy and tender-hearted, but lately I've been crying at such random things. The worst was during a preview for a new TV show where Amy Grant grants wishes to small town folk.

― Kittens Licking Cakes (coco), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:11 (twenty years ago)

Platform shoes?

― F.R.I.E.N.D. (nordicskilla), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:19 (twenty years ago)

I cried today watching Max Reinhardt's Midsummer Night's Dream when Oberon spoke for hte first time. Be damned if I can tell you why, but sure got me weepy. Also: S, that's embarrassing. Amy Grant?

― Remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 06:30 (twenty years ago)

Soundtracks make me cry in films, I blubbed like a baby at the end of Gattaca. Gah.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 06:44 (twenty years ago)

i told a friend, "try not to cry at the end of Once Upon a Time In the West, dude." He laughed and called me a "fag". and i cried some more : (

― gear (gear), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 06:46 (twenty years ago)

Listening to this morning's news reports made me rather teary.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 08:25 (twenty years ago)

I think I've grown less sentimental with age. But possibly because I think (hope?) I've become less overly emotional and, well, hystrionical with age. I used to cry if I dropped a fork. Now I'm a lot more sensible. I hope.

― We might force K8 to change her name to Marie. (kate), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 09:11 (twenty years ago)

Jurassic Bark really is terribly sad, Trayce! Gattaca about moved me to tears, too. Getting older and kicking the antidepressants both have put some cracks in my stony facade.

― Mingus Dew (Mingus Dew), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 10:03 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, they do that :/

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 10:22 (twenty years ago)

So being on anti-depressants is what's making me a hard bastard, and not growing up after all? Damn.

― We might force K8 to change her name to Marie. (kate), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 10:24 (twenty years ago)

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