I am becoming soft?

[Brenus]

I am becoming soft? I reached 55 this month.
I went for 5 years as a professional soldier, survived the training where more of half of the initial platoon failed. I went in 3 wars, saw a lot of things I wish I wouldn’t but I went over the smell of the blood, the bullets flying and rockets falling.

However, I find myself hit by feelings when watching movies or…. playing games.

The first symptom appeared in watching Black Hawk Down, when the 2 soldiers knowingly went to their death because it was what they were met to do because who they were. I put it on the fact that I could identify with them.
Then it became “worst”: Mass Effect came in my life and dialogues, stories tellers and scenes made me cry… Really cry… The scene of Shepard’s last night brought back memories and the Greek Tragedy unfolded by the run to death of my Commander Shepard, or the dialogue at Thanes’ death bed…
So, Bioware good stories tellers (and dialogues’ writers should roast slowly for their efficiency) or am I becoming softer when becoming older?

Well, I don’t suppose some will have the answer, but feel free to comment.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Well I'm only 24 and I don't have your life experiences, but maybe it has something to do with emotional maturity?

Before I hit adulthood (in my case I would say 21, a bit of a late developer) I had no understanding of emotional things, nothing had any effect on me. I was the quiet kid that everybody thought had Asperger's Syndrome - very mechanically minded.

I guess hormones or whatever have kicked in and changed me because now I flip wildly from one emotion to the other and am forever amazed by the beauty and complexity of abstract things. I can now appreciate things like scenery and music and family when I thought nothing of those things before. Recently I've been having many dreams that I can best describe as 'bittersweet' and they put me in a strange hazy and reflective state for the whole of the next day - I just walk around like I am still in a dream.

Whether or not somebody could still be maturing at your age, I don't know. Maybe you are allowing yourself to feel again after being desensitized as a soldier?

[Fragony]

Can't imagine what you have been through. Don't know if you are getting soft. I would imgagine that I would be sick of violence if I would have actually seen it. Can't know, hope that stays that way.

[Montmorency]

Before I hit adulthood (in my case I would say 21, a bit of a late developer) I had no understanding of emotional things, nothing had any effect on me.

The opposite for me. I have no regard for aesthetics now (though I will still masturbate to images that I find sexually arousing).

I recall crying empathetically at vignettes of 9/11 survivors, in 2001.

More relevantly, when I killed Bastila in KOTOR 1 I had to leave the room to cry for about 20 minutes.

Now, I stare blankly past it all.

One might consider it inherently egocentric.

[Brenus]

My fault: I went in war not as a soldier but as a Charities Worker (I was a professional Soldier before). It doesn’t change the violence and the bullets but it means I didn’t have to shoot back (so not involved in killing). The counter balance of this is I couldn’t protect (only passively, in being there) the victims, even if sometimes I wished I could have. And I knew how.

The other thing is I did actually enjoy the thrill, the adrenalin rush of going through danger. I was hard. I was able to sustain emotionally charged duties and was able to deal with dangerous situations without too much hurt for myself.

The surprise is now. I was able to see without too much feeling bodies blacken in the sand (don’t take me wrong, it was a bad experience) or was able to deal with the misery of hundreds of refugees in the Bosnian Refugees, but today I am crying (not always, the story has to be good) in front of a good movie or/and, more surprisingly, a game. A game is made by characters in pixels. Human actors can replicate emotions as they know them, but a game, even if vastly improved from the 1990…
So, do the movies or the game(s) pull stings that resonate with my experience, do they bring to the surface submerged and supressed feeling (i.e. in We were Soldiers, the moment I feel the most is the morning when they go to the buses, early in the morning, in this fogy night that hesitates to become a day), or I just become soft?

[Fragony]

Is being a softie such a bad thing. I am not hard, couldn't be a soldier, nor would I be able be able to cope with the myserie of a warzone. The Lion King gutted me. After Million Dollar Baby they could mob me up and throw me in a bucket. I am moved to tears really easily. Not a bad quality imo. Do have to cope with my friends ridiculing me though.

[The Lurker Below]

So, do the movies or the game(s) pull stings that resonate with my experience, do they bring to the surface submerged and supressed feeling (i.e. in We were Soldiers, the moment I feel the most is the morning when they go to the buses, early in the morning, in this fogy night that hesitates to become a day), or I just become soft?

I think there must be something to this. Memories triggering reactions in the brain. I recall a bad tornado movie causing the tears to flow uncontrollably, and the closest I had been to a tornado was at age 8, while I was in the basement and our roof got torn off. I did not cry at age 8, but 20 years later the memory of that stupid event got the better of me. We are soft, and squishy, but it's ok. It confirms we're human.