Actually cry isn’t free. A common misconception is that crying is free, however that is only from the view of an accountant. If we take a look at the bigger picture, crying has an opportunity cost that is often unseen yet also has a large effect on the economy.
According to the Wall Street Journal, in a survey conducted in Q2 2022, it is calculated that crying cost the US economy over 50 trillion dollars in losses. This is more than the 31 trillion dollar federal budget and more than all loses in the 2010 decade due to cybersexurity issues, another rising issue due to lack of infrastructure.
The science behind why crying causes so much economic loss is simple. Crying affects the emotion of a person heavily by constricting serotonin generation, a crucial neurotransmitter that enables humans to feel happiness. One of the most notorious disasters cause by crying is the Challenger disaster. On May 22nd 1967, lead engineer Pratsha Patel was in charge of overseeing the installation of the fatal o-rings for the Challenger flight, unfortunately just the previous day, he had watched his daughter fail the dance competition leading him to cry throughout the night. This causes a lack of sleep due to sadness which in turn caused him to not think properly leading to the o-rings being approved when they shouldn’t have.
The ideology that crying is free is a misconception spread by those who are ignorant, yet in this world ignorance is not the truth. Humans choose to be ignorant towards the ugly truth and instead choose to remain unaware of what lie in the dark. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “Why would thou suffer the sufferings of like when all could be ended with a knife.”