Joy

Julia Dederer has gotten me wondering about the next 30 years of my life. GEESH!

When I started the inquiry what showed up was joy. Imagine that! Thirty years of joy! Impossible you say? My first thought was, "what a stupid notion".

Well maybe. Maybe not.

I was fishing today. It was windy so it was hard to manage the boat as it was pushed around by the wind. It didn't seem like there was a lot of joy around. Then I began to execute my down-wind drift strategy which allowed me to stop struggling with the wind and get present to where the fish were (joy).

Shortly thereafter, when bringing in a nice bass, I realized I was in a state of joy. It occurred to me that there are lots of states of joy and that if I'm willing I can maybe find joy in lots of places, with lots of people, in many moments, for many years.

Until now I sort of thought there was just one kind of joy and it was only present in special occasions or with special people.

Interesting.

I looked up the words joy and enjoy to trace the derivations. Both trace back to the Latin word gaudere which translates to rejoice. So I'm thinking that joy as a noun is grounded in rejoicing (a verb). So joy as a state is grounded in an action. The action of rejoicing. That was enlightening because it made joy something other than a state in which I might find myself. It now occurs as something I bring about by generating, by rejoicing.