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In many cultures, especially for men, crying is considered to be undignified and infantile behavior, except in certain specific circumstances such as mourning the loss of a close friend or relative. After adolescence, men shed tears much less often than women. On average, men cry once a month and women about five times a month, especially before and during the menstrual cycle. Men not only cry less often but also for shorter periods at a time, 2-4 minutes compared to about 6 minutes for women. And they sob less too, in only 6% of cases versus 65% for women.

There are in fact three types of tear, two of which are rather uninteresting: basal tears which lubricate and protect the eye and reflex tears which flush out irritants such as smoke particles or onion vapors. The third type of tear is, of course, shed in response to emotion, and differs from basal and reflex tears not only by its cause but also by its chemical composition, being considerably richer in certain substances such as prolactin and adrenocorticotropic hormone.

All animals shed basal and reflex tears, but only human beings shed emotional tears. So maybe women shouldn’t feel so bad at crying all the time, since this surely makes them more human than men. Some people believe that some animals, in particular elephants and chimpanzees, can also shed emotional tears, but this is difficult to verify. On the other hand, we can be pretty sure that crocodiles do not cry. The expression ‘to shed crocodile tears’ has its roots in an ancient Greek legend according to which crocodiles pretend to weep to either lure or mourn their prey.

Damage to the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve renders the surface of the eye insensitive and thereby prevents the production of reflex tears. However, it is the parasympathetic division of the facial nerve that is actually responsible for making tears, and damage to the facial nerve, as in Bell’s palsy, can lead to a decrease in tear production. Reflex and emotional tears are produced by the lacrimal gland and drained through the nasolacrimal canal into the nose. Any excess fluid spills out of the eyelid and trickles along the side of the nose or surface of the cheek, whereby teardrops.

Human beings shed emotional tears in response to sadness and grief, but also in response to a range of other, sometimes positive, emotions such as elation, laughter, love, frustration, pain, anger, and surprise. Crying activates both the arousing sympathetic nervous system and the sedating parasympathetic nervous system. However, the latter is activated for a longer period, which no doubt explains why people tend to remember crying as a calming and cathartic experience.

But could there also be other reasons for people to cry? Tears may have a number of social functions, in particular (1) communicating our emotions while emphasizing their depth and sincerity, (2) attracting attention, sympathy, and help at a time of danger, distress, or need, and (3) serving as a signal of appeasement, dependency, or attachment (for example, by blurring our vision and handicapping our aggressive and defensive actions). Given all this, it should be no surprise that tears can also be used to manipulate and to deceive, cf. the crocodile tears of lore.

Tears may also have some more boring physiological functions, at first priming the body for action through the sympathetic fight or flight response and then, as we have seen, relieving stress and distress through parasympathetic activity. In ancient and mediaeval times, physicians commonly believed that crying purged excess humors from the brain. Similarly, some modern scientists believe that it serves to remove toxins, in particular stress hormones, from the blood stream. 

I like to think that tears can have a psychological function too, serving as a mechanism for a person’s unconscious to tell his conscious that a particular problem or situation actually means a lot to him and that he needs to make the effort to address or at least to process it. As the markers of strong emotion, tears signal moments of existential importance in our lives, from sharing a first kiss to grieving the loss of our partner. To deny them or to hold them back is foolish in the extreme, not only because it denies us the moment and the chance to be (and look) our best, but also because a better attitude or perspective is so often the result of a good old cry. In the words of Goethe, ‘If you’ve never eaten while crying you don’t know what life tastes like.’

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Sisyphus, by Titian.

The education that we receive barely prepares us for the challenges that lie ahead. This is what we should have been told at graduation instead of all the misplaced, self-congratulatory platitudes.

1. We strived to give you the best education. But what is the best education? The best education is not that which enables you to make a good living, nor even that which enables you to make a social contribution, but that which enables you on the path to freedom and individuation, and which, in the longer term, leads to the fullest living and the greatest social contribution.

2. Always ask for plenty of advice, but only from people whom you admire or seek to emulate. Best of all, seek advice from great works of literature and philosophy. Shakespeare and Plato are far wiser than anyone you will ever meet.

3. On the other hand, don’t dish out advice unless you are specifically asked.

4. Keep on asking silly questions. People may look at you funny, but at least you thought of the questions.

5. Be very sensitive to your feelings and intuitions. They are your unconscious made conscious. And they are almost always right.

6. Don’t be envious. Whenever you come across someone who is better or more successful than you are, you can react either with envy or with emulation. Envy is the pain that you feel because others have good things; emulation is the pain that you feel because you yourself do not have them. This is a subtle but critical difference. Unlike envy, which is useless at best and self-defeating at worst, emulation is a good thing because it makes us take steps towards securing good things.

7. Make friends with people who drag you up rather than drag you down. It is better to be taught than to teach, and better to be consoled than to console. In the long run, you become just like your friends. You are your friends.

8. Never get into a relationship because you are bored, lonely, or insecure, or because society expects you to. Things will go badly wrong.

9. The same also applies to having children.

10. Don’t expect to find perfect love, perfect virtue, or perfect wisdom in this world. These things simply do not exist in their idealized forms—or, at least, not outside our imagination.

11. Given the choice between laughing and crying, go with laughing. There is, sadly, no end of things to laugh about in this world.

12. All of the above requires a great deal of self-confidence. Try to cultivate it: it comes with habit. And it is divinely attractive.

13. The corollary here is: never be afraid. Or at least, never appear to be afraid. Danger and bad luck are attracted to fear.

14. If you don’t appear to want something, you are far more likely to get it. More importantly, when you do want something, be sure that it is worthy of you. And remember: we are rich not only by what we have, but also and especially by what we do not.

15. Never get angry. Just like fear, anger is a superfluous feeling that does far more harm than good. Most of a person’s actions and the neurological activity that they correspond to are determined by past events and the cumulative effects of those past events on that person’s patterns of thinking. It follows that the only person who can truly deserve your anger is the one who spited you freely, and therefore probably rightly! This does not mean that anger is not justified in other cases, as a display of anger—even if undeserved—can still serve a benevolent strategic purpose. But if all that is ever required is a strategic display of anger, then true anger than involves real pain is entirely superfluous.

16. Man is a product of the world which he inhabits. He seldom chooses to endure the things that he does. Simply being conscious of this fact can help to increase your degrees of freedom, and it only takes one free action to change the course of an entire lifetime.

17. Find whatever it is that you love doing and just do it, regardless of what others might think. It won’t feel like work. And chances are you will be very good at it.

18. Avoid working for other people or, worse, faceless corporations. It’s not psychologically healthy. And it’s not a game you’re ever going to win.

19. Think long term. The main difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich made a plan and stuck to it.

20. When you do find success, don’t expect anyone to be happy for you. In fact, many less successful people will actively resent you—even, sometimes, friends and family. Some people are small. Just accept it as collateral and move on.

21. Unless your work is your passion, you work so as to live and not vice versa. Spend at least half your waking hours simply reveling in the world around you. Never forget that our consciousness and its objects are the greatest of all miracles.

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The Psychology and Philosophy of Altruism

A proud beggar
Is everything about us selfish and self-interested? Or can we sometimes do the right thing for the right reason?

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 29 August 2026.

Is it possible to do something for another person without, at some level, doing it also for ourselves? Even the most selfless of acts may bring pleasure or pride. If so, can true altruism be said to exist?

Altruism is ordinarily defined as unselfish concern for the welfare of others. Like ‘empathy’, ‘altruism’ is a modern term, coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte (d. 1857) from the French autrui, which itself derives from the Latin alteri (‘other people’).

The classical notion that most nearly approaches altruism is almsgiving, which derives from the Greek eleos (pity) and means ‘to give charity’. In Christian theology, charity is, properly speaking, the love of man for God, and through God, for his fellow men.

Altruism as an Ego Defence

Altruism can be read as an ego defence, a form of sublimation in which we deal with our problems and anxieties by stepping outside ourselves and helping others.

By concentrating on the needs of others, people in altruistic vocations such as medicine, nursing, and teaching may be able to permanently push their own needs into the background, where they can more easily be ignored or forgotten. Conversely, people who care for a young, disabled, or elderly person may experience profound anxiety and distress should this role suddenly be removed from them.

Altruism as a defensive operation ought to be distinguished from true altruism, the one being primarily a means of covering up uncomfortable feelings, the other of achieving some external or impersonal end such as alleviating hunger or poverty. 

Psychological Egoism

However, many psychologists and philosophers have argued that there is, in fact, no such thing as true altruism—a position sometimes referred to as ‘psychological egoism’.

In The Dawn (1881), Nietzsche argues that that which is called ‘pity’ is not selfless but variously self-motivated.

Here, Nietzsche is in effect agreeing with Aristotle, who in the Rhetoric defines pity as a feeling of pain caused by an evil that befalls one who does not deserve it, ‘and that might well befall us or one of our friends, and, moreover, befall us soon.’ In other words, we only pity someone insofar as they are relatable.

In an insightful aside, Aristotle adds that people feel pity for their similars and acquaintances, but not for those for whom they feel as they do for themselves. The pitiful, says Aristotle, should not be confounded with the terrible: Amasis wept at the sight of his friend begging, but not at that of his son being led to death.

The acts that we call altruistic are self-interested, if not because they relieve anxiety, then perhaps because they lead to pleasant feelings of pride and satisfaction; the expectation of honour or reciprocation; or the greater likelihood of a place in heaven; and even if neither of the above, then at least because they relieve painful feelings such as the guilt or shame of not having acted.

Is True Altruism Possible?

This argument has been attacked on various grounds, but most pointedly for its faulty, circular logic: ‘People who perform altruistic acts benefit from those acts. Therefore, altruistic acts are performed for the benefit of the people who perform them.’

The bottom line, I think, is this. There can be no such thing as an ‘altruistic’ act that does not involve some element of self-interest, no such thing, for example, as an altruistic act that does not lead to some degree of pleasure or pride. Therefore, an act should not be written off as selfish or self-motivated simply because it includes some inevitable element of self-interest. The act can still be counted as altruistic if the ‘selfish’ element is accidental; or, if not accidental, then secondary; or, if neither accidental nor secondary, then at least un-determining.

Each year in the UK, around a hundred people donate a kidney to a stranger. These remarkable individuals probably derive considerable satisfaction from having donated a kidney, but it does not follow that they did so in order to obtain that satisfaction.

In short, an act is altruistic if we would have done it anyway, regardless of what it happened to bring us.

Only one question remains: how many of our so-called altruistic acts can meet this criterion for true altruism?

Continue Exploring

If this essay spoke to you, you might look into Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception and  Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions.

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