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Staving
off cynicism just as anyone else is at this time of year; telling myself I
should be a better human being just as anyone else this time of year; thinking
I could do a just as much of a better job at showing the people in my life how
much they mean to me as anyone else is likely feeling this time of year;
feeling lonely, maybe, just as anyone else this time of year, and then feeling
utterly lucky to be alive, just as anyone else is this time of year.
I’m
typing my way towards the difference between Happiness and Joy.
Happiness
is what’s on television. Happiness is sold to you, cajoling you, a false sense
of you-name-it, security, confidence, esteem. There’s nothing wrong with
Happiness, it’s just something that you spread more akin to the saccharine
preserves from a factory-sealed, machine-stirred jar you bought from a store
that was loaded off a truck and produced by a corporation.
Joy
is something…brighter, warmer, fuzzier, unknowable.
Why
mince words? The thesaurus will tell you that both words mean pretty much the
same thing.
But
why, this being the Christmas season, is everyone suddenly aware of the word
Joy… Why is it in so many non-secular X-Mas songs, the ones about Jesus and
what-have-you, going on and on about bringing Joy to the World? It just suddenly
started driving me a bit ponderously mad – thinking, now, that that might be
the most valuable thing about the whole Christmas Season. Joy.
(And when I use
that phrase “season,” I don’t mean something meteorological, I don’t mean
something evocative as leaves and sunshine and snow and insects, I mean something
more crass like Oscar Season, or Baseball Season…I mean something that’s more
perfunctory).
Happiness
is something you have, I think… And Joy is something you give.
The
emphasis, though, is that Joy is something less tangible than a new pair of
headphones or pre-paid tickets to the Car Wash…
And that’s when I, just like
every other Mickey-Mouse-Charlie-Brown-Yukon-Cornelius-Christmas-Special…enter
the clichéd refrain of having this intangible “joy” be something you keep…I don’t
know where, maybe in your heart? Let it be something that leaves a mark upon
the people you know and love, like delicately carved initials into the bark of
their heart or abstract paint scrawls upon the canvas of their soul… You pick
your visual metaphor.
Leave
your mark. Leave joy.
And
leave Happiness on the shelves of the department stores. Save your money…for
more meaningful causes.
“I’m
not…cra-zy… It’s (almost) Christmas Eve. It’s the one night when we all act a little
nicer. We….smile a little easier. We…we…share a little more. For a couple of
hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be…”
How
in the name of whatever-sanctified-spirit-Above, did I wind up quoting a movie?
That’s my own weakness, a muscle atrophied by the distraction prevailed by the
digital age…Because a movie is probably playing right now on your television, telling
you about happiness and joy.
The
impact depends upon whether you just re-quote it or whether you try giving it
out…
“Oh,
by the way… here.”
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