Maja: What is joy? Where is it? Where is love in this world that is such an evil mess.
Nick Cave: If we do not attend to the work of projecting delight upon the world, what are we actually doing? If we do not look for joy, search for it, reach deep for it, what are we saying about the world? Are we saying that malevolence is the routine stuff of life, that oppression and corruption and degradation is the very matter of the world? That we greet each day with suspicion, bitterness and contempt? It seems to me that to make suffering the focus of our attention, to pay witness only to the malevolence of the world, is to be in service to the devil himself.
Is the world heading for disaster? I suppose so. We are constantly, relentlessly, told as much. Am I hopeful for its future? Well, yes, I am. I choose to be an optimist through a kind of necessity, because from my experience pessimism is a corrosive and damaging position to take – one that casts its shadow over all things, causing a kind of societal sickness, a contaminant that ultimately amplifies and glorifies the problems it professes to abhor.
For me, to strive toward joy has become a calling and a practise. It is carried out with the full understanding of the terms of this hallowed and harrowed world. I pursue it with an awareness that joy exists both in the worst of the world and within the best, and that joy, flighty, jumpy, startling thing that it is, often finds its true voice within its opposite. Joy sings small, bright songs in the dark — these moments, so easily disregarded, so quickly dismissed, are the radiant points of light that pierce the gloom to give validation to the world. That’s how the light gets in, Leonard Cohen tells us, whilst casting his genius and delight forever among the cosmos.
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But no one understands joy like the Australian cartoonist, Michael Leunig. In his classic cartoon, ‘Gee Dad, you’re fantastic!’, a father plays his ukulele to the delight of his family, picnicking in a beam of light that cuts though an utterly devastated landscape. I can’t think of a work of art that more poignantly articulates the utter and urgent need for the pursuit of joy. Maja, joy exists as a bright, insistent spasm of defiance within the darkness of the world. Seek it. It is there.Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files | View on The Red Hand Files website
Learn this:
There is only one certainty, and that is joy.
Everything can be explained: joy has no explanation.
We cannot explain why we are joyful.
Joy is our task.
What you receive is a source of joy for the joyless.Source: Talking with Angels | Oral text by Hanna Dallos; transcription and commentary by Gitta Mallasz
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The Buddha said that if you rejoice in the good deeds of others, you share in the merit of those deeds.
Sympathetic Joy: A Tibetan Buddhist Formula for Multiplying Happiness, on Namchak website
Sympathetic joy (mudita) is one of the four immeasurables (sublime attitudes, boundless qualities) of Tibetan Buddhism. “Mudita should not be confused with pride, as a person feeling mudita may not have any benefit or direct income from the accomplishments of the other. Mudita is a pure joy unadulterated by self-interest.” Wikipedia—Mudita
The best innovations — both socially and economically — come from the pursuit of ideals that are noble and timeless: joy, wisdom, beauty, truth, equality, community, sustainability and, most of all, love. These are the things we live for, and the innovations that really make a difference are the ones that are life-enhancing. And that’s why the heart of innovation is a desire to re-enchant the world.
Gary Hamel, Innovation starts with the heart, not the head, on Harvard Business Review website (subscription / limited access)
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
Jared Croslow, author and Internet marketer
Joy isn’t emotional, in the sense that we commonly think of joy; rather, it is the state of being undisturbed by the negative things in life.
What Are the 12 Fruits of the Holy Spirit? on Learn Religions website
Continue reading
The Energetic Marriage of Love & Intent, by Della Van Hise
Unconditional service, by Steve Curtin
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