Tag: joy

Check Out My Perpetual Happy Machine

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2021Leave a comment

Dear Will:

I cannot deny that sometimes, when I learn that my school’s rivals are losing a game they were expected to win, I have flipped over to their radio feed just to hear their announcers whine about it. I’m not proud to admit that listening to the losers’ consternation has brought me a sort of wicked satisfaction. It’s just one more example of how, even years after her death, I continue to disappoint my mother.

The Germans have a word for this—schadenfreude—which Merriam-Webster defines as “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.” That there’s a word for it suggests pretty clearly that I’m not the only one afflicted with it. And if it’s true that “misery loves company,” then for sure there’s someone reading this right now taking pleasure from my affliction—which provides a sort of elegant symmetry when you think about it. Schadenfreude may also help explain why bad news spreads so much more quickly and widely than good news and why gossiping is so much fun. Perhaps we see schadenfreude as an antidote for envy—albeit one with nasty side-effects. (Ask your doctor if schadenfreude is right for you.)

Here’s a possible side-effect that had not previously occurred to me: A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that Covid-19 news reports in the United States have been significantly more negative than those from sources outside of the US. That negative tilt is apparent in US news outlets from across the political spectrum, and the gap is enormous. Last year, 51% of international news reports about the virus were negative, compared to 87% in the US. Why the difference? Researchers aren’t sure, but their number one theory is this: News outlets are simply giving Americans what they want.

Ouch. The implication is that our national media are more likely to report on a handful of anti-maskers than on the vast majority of good citizens who are masking up to help combat the virus. I guess we would rather read about ICU overload and increasing death tolls than about neighborhood fundraisers and successful vaccine research. If that’s true (and apparently it is), there must be a lot of disappointed mothers out there.

A friend of mine recently asked me: “What’s the opposite of schadenfreude?” The question stopped me short. I had never thought about it. Apparently the Germans do have another word—gluckschmerz—which refers to “pain at another person’s good fortune.” But that’s not what my friend had in mind. He was asking, in all sincerity: What is a word for enjoyment obtained from the enjoyment of others?

It turns out that Buddhists have just such a word—mudita—which is “sympathetic or vicarious joy.” The classic illustration is a parent delighting in the accomplishments of a child. Beyond that I couldn’t tell you, because everything I know about Buddhism I learned from reading The Tao of Pooh, and if mudita was in there, I don’t remember. But I love the idea of cultivating mudita, which Buddhists apparently do. Making a more conscious effort to enjoy the joy of others can only be a good thing, right?

Jesus was neither German nor Buddhist, but I think it’s safe to say that He was a mudita kind of guy. (Schadenfreude? Not so much.) Nevertheless, it seems like we Christians probably spend more energy talking about Jesus suffering for us than about how He celebrates our joy (as surely He does). We often teach the importance of weeping with them that weep; but perhaps we could spend a little more time on the other half of the scripture, “rejoicing with them that do rejoice” (Romans 12:15). Clearly I could use that sermon, in any case. Especially during football season.

If we all started practicing mudita on each other, think of the possibilities. Your happiness would increase my happiness which would, in turn, increase yours. It would be like some sort of Perpetual Happy Machine. As opposed to whatever it is we have now. Wouldn’t that be something? Just thinking about it is making me happier already.

PW

Feeling the Joy

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20203 Comments

Dear Will:

We have this delightful, irresistible friend who likes to say that she is a “certified joyologist.” She’s kidding, but if you met her and heard her infectious laugh and saw the way she infuses a room with positive energy, you would have no reason to question her claim.

Given the chaos and disruption of 2020, we figure we could all use a little more joyology in our lives. A lot more, actually. As the poet Mary Oliver has written, “joy is not made to be a crumb.” Rather, she says, “if you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.”

All right. We’re game. ‘Tis the season, after all, when joy shows up on billboards and t-shirts and any number of gift bags (shopping bags, for that matter). Looking back on this year-like-no-other, there have been plenty of things that have brought us joy in spite—and sometimes because—of all the rest. So in this season of giving, we’re giving in. To joy.

There were many moments during 2020 in which we suddenly, unexpectedly felt joy. Moments like these:

  • When hundreds of my co-workers agreed to voluntary pay-cuts so that no one would be laid off or furloughed (not a bad place to work, right?)
  • Before: 90-mile commute on the 405. Now: 30-foot stroll down the hall (pants optional)
  • Working with a puppy asleep at your feet (panting optional)
  • Hearing the sound of neighbor children lost in imagination on a cool, summer evening (love that)
  • Knowing that many doubters wear masks anyway for the sake of the rest of us (love them)
  • Sitting together—just the two of us—on the patio outside of Rubio’s (first night out in months)
  • Making new friends of old neighbors while walking Nacho, the least-disciplined dog in Orange County (work-in-negligible-progress)
  • Eavesdropping while Dana tutors one of her students (who knew math could be so fun?)
  • Texting with Seth during the Lakers’ Championship in Quarantine (perhaps even better than the championship itself)
  • Watching more movies AND reading more books (how is that possible?)
  • Trading in Dana’s two worn-out knees for a couple of state-of-the-art titanium numbers (to match her titanium hips)
  • Cheering in the early dawn as our beloved Brentford Bees came THIS CLOSE to the Premiership (best season ever)
  • Sunday evening Facetime Poetry Hour with Bryn (how else would we know about Mary Oliver?)
  • All of us avoiding COVID-19 (so far)
  • Seeing a resounding affirmation that democracy still works (so far)
  • First tour of Luke and Tyler’s first house (quirky and delightful, just like the house)
  • Spending a distanced weekend with Bryn and Seth at Silver City Mountain Resort (before they were chased out by the fires)
  • Celebrating the Dodgers’ first championship since before any of our kids was born (catharsis)
  • Looking on as Nacho disembowels yet another squeaky toy (no blue dragon is safe)
  • Studying Engineering from home while enrolled at UCLA (correction: no joy in that for Seth whatsoever—he’s moved back to Westwood)
  • Eating Guerilla Tacos during the Worst Drive-in Dance Concert of the COVID Era™ (Date Night!)
  • Witnessing the selflessness of medical personnel and other essential workers (angels and superheroes)
  • Meeting the brand-new baby of our brand-new friends who arrived only a few months ago as refugees from Afghanistan (you’d love them too)
  • Sitting down to compile this list (and there’s more where this came from)
  • Thinking about friends like you (corny, but true)
  • Celebrating the birth of Jesus (Joy to the World!)

Here’s hoping for even more joyology in 2021.

PW

Photo by Anthony Asael

As If It Were August

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20141 Comment

Dear Will:

I grew up in Redlands, California, in the sort of neighborhood you might not see these days anywhere outside of Leave It To Beaver. There were kids of every age up and down the street and around the corner. We spent our summers untethered, roaming the streets and yards and vacant lots with the freedom to go wherever our curiosity and imaginations might carry us.

A typical day in August started with obligatory chores, completed with a greater focus on speed than quality. Once released from our indentured servitude, we would head out to pick up wherever it was we left off the day before. We moved seamlessly from kick-the-can to Marco Polo to a game we called (quite accurately) Anythingball. We generally grabbed lunch at whichever house we found ourselves and then dashed off to The Big Tree or one of several secret forts where we would dream up mischief and new adventures.

In the midst of all of that fun, we fought—for sure—and argued every day, perhaps about the rules of this game or a bad call in that game. We would go from best friends to enemies to best friends again all over the course of a single afternoon. We played so hard that the smog would irritate our lungs and make it hard to breathe, but we were undaunted. It was summer, after all, and if we had hung around the house you can be sure that some grown-up would have found something “productive” for us to do.

We preferred to fill the time ourselves. We might grab a bat and a tennis ball and head for the nearby golf course to play work-ups in the fairway until the course marshal chased us off or until the daylight grew so dim we could no longer see the ball. Then perhaps we’d take up an all-neighborhood game of sardines that might have a dozen kids or more dangling from the branches of a single, teetering pine tree in somebody else’s yard. We invariably ended the day exhausted, with grass stains and scrapes, smelling like kids do when the fun has ended but the grins still remain.

Some days the fun ended earlier than others, but every day, from early morning till late afternoon or evening, my siblings and I played until our mother whistled us home. My mom had a shrill, powerful whistle that could be heard no matter where we were at any given moment. It was the two-finger dinner bell, the ultimate tweet, an ingeniously simple way for her to get all seven of us puppies back into the box.

In some respects, you and I and everyone are all still kids, doing the chores we have to but looking for energy and wonder to fill our days. There are, sometimes, injuries and hard feelings along the way, and occasionally we’ll be forced to make a midday run to the ER, but mostly what we’re hoping for is friendship and laughter. Joy. For all of the challenges and frustrations, the sadness and the heartache that may accompany our mortal existence, scripture tells us that joy is our ultimate purpose (2 Nephi 2:25)—it’s why we’re here. Sooner perhaps than most of us will like, the time will come when we’ll hear a distant whistle calling us home, but even then we’ll find family waiting for us there: Father and Mother and siblings. Joy beyond measure.

In the meantime, we should live each day as if it were August. Which, by the way, it is.

PW