-Under the Influence of Joy

The sorts of revelations received under the influence should always be treated with some suspicion. The prisons bulge with the results of millions of acts undertaken in intoxicated states. That is sort of the point of the whole thing--an abandonment of responsibility and reason, an embrace of chaos and foolishness. Not exactly the sort of state in which real problems are solved.

There swirls a beauty, though, in the thoughts that can blow through my mind as I drowsed and recovered. I woke in confusion, with the tube in my nose and pain in my throat from the tube that had been removed. Whining at the nurse on duty, I felt the waves of drug pumped in through IV. A sadness lingered in me. The man in the next bed moaned, "It hurts," again and again.

I had just turned 39 three days before the surgery. All of the doctors in the succession that led to the surgeon's door told me I was too young for the problems I was having. It is difficult to understand the therapeutic value of such a comment.

Drugged, in pain, sad for myself, I worked very hard not to moan like the man next bed over. Quietly, I told the nurse how things felt, and she'd squirt more drugs in somewhere over my head. I picked at the clear, plastic tubing in my nostrils.

I knew some small part of hope. So maybe it was the drugs, but what I knew at that moment is that everywhere, all the time, everyone of us is seconds from joy. Just a moment away, the most miserable of us can find delight. For me, those moments can be found in small things: sudden butterfly, unaffected laughter, birdsong at morning. And there it is.

It awaits us all, everywhere around us. I still knew this, later, as I recovered in my bed, so sedated that my breathing was slowed. I would be dishonest to say there was no enjoyment for me in that torpor. And there it was again, such a joy in me, for the smell of us on the pillows, in the warmth of the blanket.

Over the next several days, this thought returned to me--the proximity of joy, how near is delight. Why are there not entire university departments learning to find those moments, I wondered? Perhaps such things are ephemeral necessarily, too varied and intangible to categorize and quantify in any meaningful sense.

Not to try, however, seems an abdication of our responsibility as humans. I try to imagine my world if just the people on my street decided to live so as to produce joy for others and for themselves--all of them with the categorical imperative of wanting to make for others the joy they'd wish for themselves.

It is a heavy personal burden to consider my own part in that hypothetical world. It is so much easier to receive. I'd be willing to try, though. A small, personal effort to understand began as I breathed through the drugs and pain.

Maybe others will join the effort--it's okay, too, if no one does, as I have begun for me. What is in the joy of the world, the unexpected delights that accost us in fortunate moments?

Though not required for feeling joy, the first component I considered was surprise. Perhaps this is the most personal part of my findings: Those things in which I find the most joy are those that are surprises to me. It is a sense of jamais vu for those most familiar things experienced anew.

Familiarity is certainly a part of those joyous moments for me. Like many, I'd guess, I greet new things with some fear, and with avoidance. I may find in the sensation a freshness, but it is the known-ness of the thing that delights.

Too, it is the surprise and burst of excitement that accompanies a joyous moment that all such moments seem to me to have in common. Contextuality needs to be acknowledged as well, as part of the surprising gift. For me, it is the sudden intrusion of the beautiful into the banality of everyday life that is so jarring, so gratifying.

It is, finally, beauty that weaves together the joys in my life. I don't know if this implies truth is in joy, or what beauty is, but none of that matters much in those moments.

I try again to imagine a world in which our motivation was to inspire joy--in ourselves, others, the world. The thought stays with me as the pain fades and the drugs leech out of me. How shall I start?