If life makes sense, it is because it is accompanied by Joy. Joy is a feeling, an emotion, a realization. It’s personal and private. It is exclusive to me. And yet some joys are universal.
Joy is not happiness, though often understood interchangeably. Happiness revolves around the people we surround ourselves with, the events that occur in our lives, the thoughts that go through our brains, and the things around us. All these mutate. Therefore, happiness diminishes or even may grow.
Joy, however, can not be contrived nor crafted. It is spontaneous, it is suo generis. It does not demand a return, a reciprocation. It does not dilute nor is sullied. It likes to remain unrequited. In fact, its very nature is absolute and free. Joy subsumes happiness. It surpasses happiness and goes beyond.
The two aspects of life, that are in turn inter related, bring me unqualified joy. One is creation and the other nature.
Creation, to my mind, is always joyful. Creation is joy itself. Creating anything is possible only when one gives part of oneself to what is being created. Mothers give birth to babies, Trees and plants bear flowers and fruits, That is nature at its creative best.
But then there are painters who bring life to canvas, or musicians who breathe life into what they compose, the wordsmith who weaves a metaphor that transports the reader to a different world, the poet whose imagery soothes and enthralls – all these are the creations of the mind and the heart.
A contact, a conversation, a call that occur between me and nature brings unbounded joy. A walk in the forest, listening to the whispering woods, hearing the chirping of un-alarmed birds bring spontaneous joy. The aroma of a freshly drenched earth that has been baked and scorched by a relentless ruthless sun, or the cool torrent of the first monsoon rain evokes a feeling and sensation that I will call pure joy. The endless expanse of the sea where wave after wave heave like a young bosom, the towering grandeur of a hill range that reminds one of the smallness of our bodies and yet soar our spirits, or even a simple sight of a beautiful flower, or the smell of the wild shrubs and trees as one traverses a lonely pristine path, all these are joys to me, unalloyed, unadulterated, unbridled, uncensored and unmatched.
Modern science has dismembered joy into ungainly terms. We are made to understand the chemistry of joy. Joy is defined in terms of release of dopamine and serotonin, the play of neurotransmitters and hormones, the chemical interface between cells and within cells. I don’t follow such esoteric explanation for an emotion that does not need an explanation. The subject undergoing such emotion is not looking for words and idioms. Her mind and heart are scripting these words. Who needs an explanation? How do you explain creation to the creator?
scribo ad LX 