The Category of Joy (1)

Joy is not the same as “having fun”, nor is it about “having a good time”; it is not the same as humor (per se), nor is it (worse still!) about joking, telling jokes. I mention these counterexamples because I have been witness to occasions when joy should have been present – and yet, because of an apparent loss of the very capacity to understand what joy is, as a distinct state of existence, joy was replaced, approximated, feebly attempted, through “telling jokes”, or through efforts at “having fun”. A sad and strange state of affairs, this, and one peculiar (seemingly) to our time and to a certain civilisational milieu.

Resurrection (illuminated manuscript,
c.1492-1503, British Library)

What is joy, then? Well, I have decided to use this Easter Octave (the eight days following the Sunday of the Resurrection, which are meant to be experienced as a sort of a temporal extension of that day) as an occasion to investigate the category of joy (the Easter Octave being supposed to be - exceptionally so - a period of lived joy). And I will pursue this investigation - without any pretensions at exhaustiveness, nor even at utter precision - by looking at different types, or manifestations, or exemplars, of lived joy. Poor and approximated examples, necessarily - because I can only be sure of what I, personally, experience... not what others experience, and why, and how.

And I am indeed persuaded – and thus I start from this assumption – that joy is a category of being, a state of existence; and not something that we do, a category of actions, nor something to be achieved, conquered, made... Rather, it seems to me (at this point, at least – at the beginning) that joy is something like a fine-tuning of our existence to the very truth of our being. But let’s not jump ahead - let’s just look at different examples (or manifestations) of joy (as an existential experience), with the goal of better understanding the specific elements and attributes of this category, hopefully obtaining, at the end, a clearer contour and delineation of what this state of being might be and might entail.

Before I begin, however, let me repeat again the disclaimer - that this is only an act of investigation, and that I don’t know exactly what will result from it. Yes, it does start from some intuitions, which are rooted (of course) in certain experiences; but this whole attempt is and will remain, modestly, just an attempt – both in its means and possibilities, and in its aims.

1. Joy as Creation

Joy as, or in, the act of creation; and I will use here an example – seemingly almost spontaneous – of artistic creation (or expression; which is basically the same thing). Artistic creation seems to come from an inner need, from an existential need - of expression. Another attribute that seems to pertain intrinsically to artistic creation is freedom – not understood as unruliness (or lack of rules; oh, no!), but freedom as the possibility for the expression of being. (There is a scene in the movie, The Lives of Others, in which a secret police specialist describes how destroying the capacity of the artist to create, is the best and surest method – and thus the cruelest, isn’t it? – of destroying their very being. It's like stopping a bird from singing.)

“Expression of being” means expressive of a genuine need – and thus, inherently self-effacing and modest, and not aimed at self-laudatory exhibitionism. At the same time, the artistic expression is inherently directed at others, is dialogic - even if only potentially, or virtually: like when a composer composes (for a future audience, which might never exist), or when a musician rehearses (and the listeners are present, simultaneously, in his head).