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Oh, to be 12 and free again! Free to express pure angst, unbridled excitement, torrential tears! Passionate enough to lament the end of the world on a regular basis.

Watch this video of kids reacting to the news that David Archuleta did not win American Idol, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s an hilarious – perhaps scary – look at the no-holds-barred world we left behind with our squeaky voices and pre-pubescent ideals.

When was the last time we wailed like that? Maybe if Obama had lost the election. But outside of sports and real personal tragedies, we (in North America at least) never seem to let go like that. Maybe we don’t feel it inside, or maybe we hold back from showing it – I hope it’s the latter, cause I sure don’t want to believe that we’re that emotionally muted as a culture.

This must be the reason that sports are so popular. It’s one area in life that we, especially we men, can unabashedly scream in ecstasy or despair. A classical Greek catharsis for our bottled-up souls.

This is also the true indicator of the miracle wrought by Barack Obama. For the first time perhaps since JFK, people were roused out of political apathy and allowed themselves to care, to hope, to believe in a leader and a vision. I’m regularly bummed out by the results of elections in my own country, but would have joined the legions of wailing people around the world if Barack had lost. I would have easily become as lost as those near-suicidal American Idolotrors, as easily as I joined the hugging and high-fiving throngs in the school parking lot the morning after election day.

I want to celebrate and yell and wail more often. And you, when do you let go?

Photo by dantegeek.