How many holidays are devoted exclusively to Joy?
Easter is a joyous day, but first we have to travel through the week of suffering and death.
Ramadan ends in a joyful feast, but first we must fast and abstain.
There are many festivals of heroic achievements, but first we must follow the steps of the heroes and heroines through suffering and deprivation until their eventual success.
How many Houses of Joy are based solely on foundations of Joy?
(foundations wherein there is no painful sacrifice?)
How many symbolic events do we celebrate that are only Filling , and not counter-balanced by an Emptying?
Life events are structured around the transitory nature of Joy and the boundless nature of Suffering. Holidays are days of escape: they are islands of happiness in the sea of painful experiences.
Abuse, fear, and suffering have ongoing effects throughout a person's future, and may warp and destroy.
Happiness tends to be a burst in the Moment, and does not "re-wire" the brain in the same way pain does; the chemistry of the brain seems to dilute and the body filters out the "joyous molecules" from our bodies.
The Winter Feast of Joy points us to a greater understanding of our Lives, one that hitherto has not been capable of being conceived: the possibility of enduring effects of happiness!
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5 comments:
Joy is one of the most fleeting things in life. We don't have the stamina to sustain too much of it. Is that why it's so fleeting, or is it just a rare thing we don't appreciate nearly enough when it makes and offer?
I think this has a good deal to do with how the body produces its own "pleasure" drugs and how it processes them, and this connects to our use of external drugs.
I think we need to have a serious study of Joy, not so as to create a Ministry of Joy and dispense opiates to the masses, but to understand...
as I write this, I am rather overwhelmed by this notion of a Critique of Joy.....
and my mind throws up things like Kant and the Joy of Sex in some sort of humorous juxtaposition...
and I know we would tend to turn everything into Hefnerism and Kardashian-Speak...
but it interests me deeply and suddenly.
Which more or less makes me certain I'll be hearing more about this subject in the not too distant future. I cannot say I would be disappointed in your thoughts. I agree with you that, like most other things in our society, joy has been ill-defined and -understood. It's actually a pretty deep question: what is it? and its origin?
I have been looking into it. I want to get some background in the chemistry of the body... interested in certain chemicals which breach the brain/blood barrier.
I have a "odd" feeling when I write about this. Interesting.
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