J.D. Salinger said that "we are being sentimental when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives to it." The definition cuts cleanly. Sentimentality as excess, as disproportionate investment of care. But then ethics arrives and complicates everything. Some things end up feeling like they ought to be cared about, regardless of cosmic indifference. Children suffering, species vanishing, injustices compounding—these demand tenderness even if the universe offers none.
How do we figure what constitutes "more tenderness than God gives to it"? Whether we interpret "God" as universe, nature, cosmic order, or reality's indifferent baseline—the question remains: what proportion of care matches what actually is? Without cosmic calibration, we calibrate against social consensus. Society has strong opinions about what deserves attention. It builds entire industries directing care toward sanctioned objects whilst starving others. The collective decides which suffering matters, which losses merit mourning.
The trick is to be part of society and not be part of it simultaneously. Being able to figure what to think socially and what to think without caring how society looks at things. This sounds like spiritual instruction, but it's navigational necessity. Too much conditioning and we become echo chambers of consensus sentiment. Too little and we drift into solipsistic irrelevance.
We don't want to become products of our time fully