When others cars cut him off, what they are cutting off seems to be his last tie to respectable membership in the community, Katz said. For someone else who was interviewed, getting a Mercedes meant growing up and being a successful adult, with a stable and secure life. With the simple, quiet flip of a single finger, the gesturer can move from a state in which he or she had been molested by someone who rudely invaded his or her space, to a state of relaxation, once again sealed in quiet comfort and moving through public space in a mobile private living room. As the recipient takes in the avenging victim's humiliating gesture, the avenger is cleansed of the anger resulting from the earlier humiliation, metamorphosing out of anger and into joyful revenge. Because the angered party's purpose is to flip one's anger off, the target can usually end the interaction by not resisting its accusation.
Adults cry silent tears to honor what is too sacred to capture with language.
While sad crying is often loud, joyful crying in response to precious moments such as the birth of one's child, a wedding, or a major achievement by a loved one, is almost always silent, as we discreetly brush tears aside. Katz disputes that emotions are in conflict with reason, as so often depicted. As an illustration, he shows how a murder suspect cries strategically to buy time under interrogation as the police present evidence that undermines his story. His crying is part of a desperate effort at self-preservation. These little moments are falls in which we repeatedly relive the struggle to make personal sense of our lives and what we witness.