I clearly recall the two times I've cried since I was about 12 (in 1962), neither of which have anything to do with this thread and both of which were pretty stupid compared with bigger things that deserved more emotion.<br /><br />Nonetheless, often I am choked to varying degrees by things I see or read, and it gets worse as I age.<br /><br />When I was in my teens and early 20's I used to laugh with others of the same age about various misfortunes reported in the newspapers, such as the predictable fireworks night ("cracker night", which mightn't mean the same in parts of the USA) kid with the eye bandage at the Children's Hospital.<br /><br />Now I see a newspaper report or hear a radio or TV report of similar things or any report of the death of a child and, like the old people my mates and I used to deride 40 years ago, I think "poor kid" or "there's parents tonight who are suffering what I never want to begin to experience".<br /><br />I feel the same when I see, as tonight, the suffering people trying to dig their kids out of collapsed buildings in the Pakistan earthquake. I wasn't that far off tears when a 4 year old boy found by a foreign team with camera probes was pulled out alive in reasonably good condition.<br /><br />Anyone else experience these emotions and wish that they could be harnessed for a better world where parents regardless of race or religion could just protect and advance their kids?
