ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF JOY

You know the feeling. You've had a shitty day. You've cried, you've been cold, hungry, and mad. And then suddenly, you get this meme from your friend. You're not expecting it, but joy bursts forth. You feel its fire in your blood, body, and soul, burning up towards your throat. And poof! You find yourself smiling.

Originating from the Latin words "gaudium" (satisfaction) or "laetitia" (pleasure in enjoying a good), joy is a powerful emotion often felt when our desires and needs are fulfilled. It's distinct from mere pleasure due to its lasting impact and depth, and it's different from happiness, which is more abstract and often pursued as a goal in itself.

Despised by philosophers like Plato who thought it was a sign of madness, and proclaimed by others such as Bergson, Nietzsche and Spinoza, although it has been studied, joy doesn’t have much written about it if you compare it to happiness, desire, anger and depression. And yet, in the words of Lenoir, “Is there any experience more desirable than joy?”

How do we actually feel joy?

Joy is wild. It can spring forth anytime, catching us off guard, even when inappropriate.

Joy is an emotion—it follows the same process as all other emotions.

The role of our emotions is to signal the satisfaction of our needs. Pleasant emotions indicate that one or more needs are fulfilled, while unpleasant emotions suggest one or more unmet needs. They subsequently guide our actions.

So, something happens externally or internally, and it satisfies a need—the feeling of eating delicious food, laughing with a friend, contemplating a sunset, or getting a promotion. Joy is secreted, it floods our brain with happy-feeling hormones, our body manifests it physically (flushed skin, warm tone in our voice, smile, laughter), and then, like all emotions, it fades away. The brain has received the message. Our needs have been satisfied. On to the next thing now.

"Is there any experience more desirable than joy?”

            —Frédéric Lenoir, La puissance de la joie

So where does joy come from?

Joy comes from a state of satisfaction. We can feel different degrees of joy, from mild to intense, depending on our satisfaction levels. And then I realised... that may be why Europeans and Americans seem less happy than people in the Global South.

As I stepped into that village in Senegal's dry lands, where shade is silver and water is gold, as I saw fragile huts surrounded by trash, skinny donkeys and plucked chickens running through the arid, sizzling ground, one thing stood out: joy, everywhere in the streets.

People here dress in colourful clothes with bold patterns. They greet us with smiles and invite us to share their food, and even water. They talk about their hardship but also their wins. They smile, laugh, and dance unapologetically. I witnessed this in multiple instances in Senegal: as a tourist, an NGO representative, and a backpacker. The same thing happened in different contexts and towns across various regions: I was welcomed with open arms. Invited to people's homes to share a meal. Asked questions, without judgment, about my life and fears.

In Dakar, I once returned to a charming yet touristy island I had visited a month before. This little girl I had met recognised me, ran towards me and jumped into my arms with a glorious smile. Her mom remembered my name, and I felt terrible for not remembering hers. She recalled where I had gone and asked about my journey. Then, the father stepped out of the tent, and greeted me with a cheerful "Kasumay"—hello in Diola.

They sleep outside every night under a small tent perched atop a cliff on Ngor Island right by the waves crashing below, and sell souvenirs to get by. And yet, the smiles and conversations they shared with me were a gift I feel incredibly grateful for. That little girl running towards me was, in all honesty, one of the purest expressions of joy I had ever experienced until now. She didn’t have much, but one couldn't help but smile and feel her joy when greeting you outside her modest tent.

Can our standards become so high that it becomes difficult to experience joy?

Of course! Look at us when we were kids— laughing, not giving a f****. We hadn't lived enough, so anything satisfied us.

The more we have, the harder it is to get satisfaction. I've already experienced it with landscapes: I've seen extraordinary landscapes all over the world to the point where I'm getting strict with how beautiful a place looks in my eyes. The joy a landscape provided me ten years ago is getting harder and harder to feel. It's the same with drugs. The more you take them, the less you feel the effects.

Am I a snob now? I look at nature like model scouts look at people in the streets. How did my standards get so high? In an effort to live, to experience, to see the world, I raised my expectations to ridiculous levels. You know that horrible feeling when you look at a place, feel amazed by what you see, and hear that person say, "I've seen better." Yep, I'm afraid I'm becoming that person.

Travelling to Senegal was a reminder to lower my standards, be more generous, appreciate the little things, and value joy as a force within us that allows us to create a ripple effect on our surroundings. How hard is it not to feel joy when hearing someone explode in laughter? We can be that person. We can give that gift.

We just need to lower our standards.

Finding joy from within

Satisfaction can come from external factors, but you can also cultivate it internally, giving you the foundation to feel joy within yourself. It may be easier—and faster—than lowering our high occidental standards for satisfaction.

Self-help and wellbeing gurus have their fair share of gibberish, but there's one thing I'll always agree with: the practice of being grateful.

For example, acknowledging one thing we're thankful for at the end of the day. It takes a minute. Being grateful for what we have, not what we wish we had, helps us cultivate satisfaction during our daily grind, and thus, in its tiniest expression, joy. Joie de vivre, like we say in French. An existential force we have the power to grow, for us and for others, to keep moving forward despite life's tragedies and absurdities. Not the joy of living like this or that, having achieved this or that, having seen, bought, experienced this or that. No. Just the joy of living.

Because life is a miracle. We could have never come into existence, and yet here we are. Joy speaks of the awareness of this miracle. Our sole existence is a source of joy. And when, in addition to this miracle, there's the sun shining, the freshly brewed coffee for breakfast, your friend's memes, your sister's promotion—we have everything we need to feel joy. We can let it flow freely through us, within us, and outside of us.

It almost starts to resemble happiness, you might say. But no, not really, because we know it won't last. We'll hop back on Instagram, watch our world's horrors, hear about our friend's misfortunes, lose jobs, and break a limb. And we can rest in the feeling that joy, like any other emotion, can return.

If joy isn't happiness, it's still its promise: every moment of joy reminds us that happiness is possible. That we can have faith in life's ebbs and flows, once again, despite it all.

I invite you to lower your standards. Let’s all be a little bit more drunk on life, shall we? 

This was first published in the spring edition of Roamer’s Digest. Sign up to my newsletter to get the next issue straight to your inbox.

All images captured by me in Senegal.