Quest for Joy II: Cupped Hands
"But Theozete," I hear you ask, "do you think you might be conflating joy with a state of limerence or love?" No, strawman, you silly thing. For one, my love can be pried from my cold dead fingers, it is not fleeting, and is never wasted nor requiring dissection; secondly, I think limerence, love, affection, etc. are all possible sources, but not the only one...:
Jotted on the bus, dictated, lightly edited:
"Sometimes there is music that speaks to my soul and other times I wish even the happiest songs (or perhaps especially the happiest songs), would shut up. This may be one of those entries, only because I think delving into the experiences of unanswered questions, pain, and grief resonate easier. I mean really, who dissects joy? Who looks at, it in its scarcity, and asks, "why am I feeling this right now? What do I really feel? Let's sit with it and try to release its source." No.
I have challenged myself at times, for instance, to write joyful poems, but to no avail, even if it was within my reach. And then there are hymns... urgh. Hit or Miss--especially in text form. I'm sure that there's a whole branch of musical psychology about it, but even if you took haunting or joyful lyrics, and mismatched them with the opposite tunes, there is still has dissonance. The words cannot be switched, and the music will prevail.
Also, does it seem to you also that "joy" words lack depth?
Joy seems... different than pleasure... the opposite of depression, and nothing like anxiety. It is an emotion that seems to lend itself purely to song or singing, as pleasure to moans, or pain to screams. And so I wonder: is* joy an emotion, or a sensation? This would explain its elusive nature; compared to other emotions that seem to stick, whether positive or negative. And in that case, does that speak to why it has so many sources? Or is it a combination* of other emotions, existing like a color blended between primaries?
I think the latter idea is interesting, but unnecessarily complex. Joy does not seem to require complexity. I think of dogs — the relief, excitement, and the love they greet you with at the door. Are all of these prerequisite emotions necessary for the colour "joy"? Or does one's heart simply leap "joy!" the same way the mind says "purple!", giving it its own name, above "bluey-red", or "reddy-blue."
Thankfully I have some of my earlier writings I compiled when I was actually feeling it, where, at length I define it as: "A reaction of some state of proximity to God (ie. "rightness")... a return to a primary state of equilibrium not of this world, and a clarity that is often last experienced in youth, so can sometimes been conflated or associated with naivete or a state of ignorance, even though a closer world would be... a reaction to some sort of purity (?)"
I think of losing my breath-- sudden awe, relief, excitement, an elation at touching what seems to itself touch the ideal on the other side of the veil.
Some answers to consider:
1. That joy is a signal of something else, not a state of being. A kind of... reaction to a recognition of or contact with something of the Kingdom.
2. Perhaps Joy cannot be decoded like other emotions because it is a feeling that lends itself to movement, where grief may lend itself to stillness. Joy wants to be... embodied.
3. Perhaps joy words feel flat or fall short only because it does not need to be deep? Like white, that reflects back all colours with high energy, versus black that absorbs them all and is often accompanied by an abyssal depth?
Some actions to consider:
I feel at risk of sounding like a psycho-babbling shill, but... perhaps if grief and darkness are low energy and abyssal, and often drain us of our energy, and joy could be seen as emitting high energy (or at least, reflecting it from some higher source), light, and lighting/filling... Perhaps the way forward is opening oneself up in a receptive posture, rather than an expressive one.
