Hardly PhD level insight.
However, this evening I had the “joy” of fixing a toilet and while doing so I pondered the meaning of “joy.”
There is NO joy in repairing a toilet.
I’m sure there are some among us who would invoke “a sense of pride in a job well done” or some such bullshit. Perhaps. But that is not “joy.”
No, the closest I can come to feeling good at all about twenty minutes spent on repairing a toilet is that we can be truly miserable if the toilet remains broken.
So, in repairing the toilet, we avoid those hours, days, and (the way my schedule looks right now) the potential for weeks of dealing with the inconvenience and mess and misery of a broken toilet.
But – joy should be more than simply the absence of misery.
We need working toilets in our lives. And tonight, at least in Casa Willett, we have them.
We also need some joy in our lives. The more, the better! That, unfortunately, might be a bit more rare and elusive.
I hope you’re being more successful in that pursuit.
“Joy is in the ears that hear, not in the mouth that speaks. The world has few stories glad in themselves, and we must have gay ears to defy Despite.” (Of all places, from the Thomas Covenant series by Stephen Donaldson.)
OTOH, there’s this from The Princess Bride:
Fezzik : You just shook your head… doesn’t that make you happy?
Westley : My brains, his steel, and your strength against sixty men, and you think a little head-jiggle is supposed to make me happy?
Yet I think joy can be found in the most unlikely places, including fixing a toilet.
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I didn’t expect to be getting a Foamfollower response, but it’s appropriate. Thank you for reminding me. With the news headlines every day I have been thinking about Despair and some of the lessons from these books.
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Heh. Just because I typed it, doesn’t mean I don’t need the reminder, too.
Oddly, the lower the tech that I’m fixing (e.g. plumbing), the more I enjoy it. The higher the tech (e.g. my car, a computer, etc.) the more easily frustrated I am. (“This should just work, damn it!”). By that reasoning, I suppose I should be farming instead of programming. 🙂
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