Kelsey Garegnani - Joy

I remember once when I was little and I came home from a trip with my dad my mom ran, hugged me, and started crying. I asked her, “mom are you sad?” “No,!” she said. “Then why are you crying?” “I’m crying because im just so happy!” As a child I didn’t understand because in my experience and my teaching I had learned that crying = sad. In class we discussed how in Surprised by Joy Lewis describes joy as not extreme happiness, but is really just an emotion that comes upon you when you feel close to God. It can come out of sadness or even be a mixture of both. An intense Joy can be an overwhelming experience that might lead to tears. I thought this was interesting because personally I do not cry at sad things as often as it is the bitter-sweet or extremely “happy” moments which stir more emotions. Watching video clips of fathers coming home from war are the most joyful, I think, even though I end up bawling. What I find interesting is that we are humans feel the need to define and separate things so much. We define happy, and sad, but cant you feel both at once? There are probably so many more definable emotions that go unnoticed or recognized because we are se ton defining them by already created constructs. Why do we have to label them anyways? Cant we just experience them without having to categorize them even if they are not seperateable? These emotions are relative and interchangeable and we are trying to make them concrete experiences.