Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.02.2019, Síða 4

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4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • February 15 2019
It happens with surprising
frequency. I will be
speaking with people
following a memorial service
when someone takes my hand,
looks into my eyes with a warm
gaze, and says, “I enjoyed the
service very much.” As the
words leave their mouth, their
expression changes – some
look surprised, others look
embarrassed, almost all look
concerned about their apparent
enthusiasm – and they say,
awkwardly, “Well, you know
what I mean.” Often they’ll
struggle to find alternative
words for the feelings they
experienced – words that feel a
little more neutral emotionally,
a little less enthusiastic – but I
long ago concluded that what
people really mean, at such
times, is that they really enjoyed
it. Now, we obviously don’t
enjoy the circumstances that
compel us to bid farewell to a
friend or neighbour, a loved one
or intimate, yet it is surprising
how the end of life – or some
other significant misfortune or
setback or disappointment –
often opens us up not only to
life’s pain and sorrow but also
to life’s joy. As Kahlil Gibran
observed in The Prophet: “Your
joy is your sorrow unmasked.”
Joy is commonly defined
as an “intense and especially
ecstatic or exultant happiness”
or as a “source or an object of
pleasure or satisfaction.” To be
joyful is to be filled with “ecstatic
happiness or pleasure, delight or
satisfaction.” Etymologically,
joy is surprisingly related to
the word “gaudy,” which we
sophisticated individuals are
loathe to become, however
much joy we may experience –
and joy itself ultimately derives
from a root implying “religious
fear or awe,” which is what
leads us – whether conservative
or liberal, old-fashioned or
modern – to rejoice! We rejoice
in life; we rejoice in love; we
rejoice in our abundance.
One of my beloved
professors from university, Paul
Trudinger, used to say that,
“happiness happens but joy
abides.” It was a lasting lesson
he had acquired from a popular
children’s song from years ago,
which he perhaps first learned
around the campfire in Sudan,
where he was born and where
he grew up, the son of medical
missionaries in that country.
He took the song to heart and,
for as long as I was around
him, he lived by its sentiment.
“Happiness happens but joy
abides.”
We live in a society that
is obsessed with the pursuit
of happiness and we are,
as a consequence, so often
disappointed. Sometimes even
miserable. In contemporary
usage, happiness is so often
such a superficial emotion.
Happiness can be satisfied by
a consumer culture; it can be
achieved through the lucky
happenstance of stumbling from
one outward success to another,
from one satisfying occasion
to another. By contrast, joy
involves a quality of depth
which the pursuit of happiness
will never quite satisfy. As
such, the joy that abides is
oftentimes accompanied by
disappointment and sorrow, by
failure and doubt. It can truly
be our “sorrow unmasked,”
reminding us, in the colloquial
expression of Arlo Guthrie, that
“you can’t have a light without
a dark to stick it in!” So often
it is in the contrast between
disappointment and satisfaction,
privation and pleasure, sorrow
and delight, that we discover
joy. Joy is the depth dimension
of our happiness.
The past few weeks have
been personally challenging
for me. And I know that some
of my friends and family have
been struggling with challenges
of their own. I’ve stumbled
from one unhappy moment to
the next, it seems, but when
I’ve been least expecting it,
I’ve found something joyous to
brighten my day. Surprisingly,
the things that bring me joy are
often small, inexpensive, or so
everyday in nature that they’re
easy to overlook. A favourite
strain of music, a visit from
a friend, a forgotten memory
reclaimed, an old photo, or an
unexpected kindness. Whether
or not there’s really much
difference between happiness
and joy, instead of pursuing
happiness, sometimes we just
need to wait for it to catch up
to us. And when it does, it’s
really quite joyful – even in
challenging times.
Stefan’s Saga
Stefan Jonasson
Editor
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Happiness and joy
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