My wife’s job is no paradise; some of her colleagues are burdened by crippling lifesituations, and disorganization and luke‑warm commitment from management make things harried.
But she consistently plays the piano. Sometimes her progress disappoints her, sometimes the new piece seems too difficult, sometimes her back hurts, sometimes her hands seem too small. But if I spy on her from the other room, she’s always passionately absorbed by playing the piano, swaying with the feeling of the piece, making very funny noises when she misses a note (it’ll be hard to write it out here, but it sounds kind of like “Wraaack!”).
Playing the piano is a joy that pulls and pushes her day after day, week after week; some people call it a “passion” but it’s deeper than that; she’s rather calm about the whole thing. So, when her job seems a waste of her life, she can usually be encouraged when she plays the piano. Many people have not yet been discovered by their “piano.”
Joy. I may be reflecting on what some people these days call “passions,” but that sounds too intense. By “joy,” I mean quiet and simple and ordinary, like (for me) puttering in the garden or building a website. Joy satisfies deep parts of its lucky host.
Joy seems out of reach, in a way. I mean, we can hardly go after it directly, since it seems to come along unexpectedly, the consequence of doing something else. For example, my wife plays the piano so faithfully not only for emotional satisfaction, but because it poses problems she enjoys solving, almost the way I derive joy from fixing stuff, the way my son derives joy from video games, the way my grandmother wanted to make her roses flourish. They're all equal.
If you know an activity that consistently gives you joy, you’re fortunate; devote time to it. If you don’t, set out to remember it, then make time for it. Without joy, we are stunted.
Energy is eternal delight.
William Blake
The Complete Illuminated Books
If we’d only stop trying to be happy
we could have a pretty good time.
Edith Wharton
It’s not the nature of the work but its consecration that is the vital thing.
Martin Buber
The Martin Buber Reader
