Joy is that surge that breaks out of the compound where
possessions accumulate and gratification is oral; ecstasy is finding
oneself swept away into inhuman spaces. We step out of the deck of our
house in the middle of the night and our eyes travel to the billions of
blazing stars of the Milky Way millions of light years away. We go to a
nearby meadow one summer afternoon and listen to the tiny songs of the
insects as our eyes drift with the passing clouds, enter microscopic
and cosmic realms. We climb to Saqsayhuamán high over Qosqo, assembled
of stones that weigh up to 200 tons each and fitted together so tight
that we cannot push a knife blade between them; we go up the spirals of
Borobudur to gaze at the wall of simmering volcanoes over the jungle
below. We go to ancient monasteries in Ladahk and spend hours entranced
before images of monstrous Himalayan deities dancing in rings of fire;
we wander among the massive carved stones of Gobekli Tepe temple in
southeastern Turkey, crafted and arranged 11,000 years ago by
prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even
pottery, until we find ourselves possessed by unknown ancient gods and
demons.
The ecstasy of traveling the night skies from the deck of our house;
of entering enchanted microecosystems in a nearby meadow; of going into
the ocean, into the skies, into the rock core of the earth, into the
Ice, is a pleasure radically different from the contentment that
simmers over contents possessed. We will be dispossessed of apparatus
to capture images and memories, dispossessed of memory and foresight,
dispossessed of our identity, of our human upright posture and bodily
skills. We will be adrift in the immensities and sublimities of
reality. We will weep the bitterest tears and roar with wild laughter,
our hands will extend blessings and curses. We will know reality.
Two practical rules are all we need:
Rule 1) Believe our happiness! Never make any important decision out
of depression, a sense of need, of dependency. If we decide to get
married because we are feeling lonely, afraid of becoming unattractive
as we age or of being uncared for in old age, then we will marry badly.
Make every important decision in a state of exultation. Isn't it on the
dance floor that we feel right, our body feels right, we never have to
urge ourselves to go, we never want to leave? Then decide to be there,
to become a dancer, whatever the costs, the uncertainties, the counsels
of prudence pressed on us!
Let us believe our happiness! Boredom and depression, wariness and
prudence are not realistic. They narrow down our view, they raise up
fences and walls, they leave the horizons and the depths in darkness.
Joy is the most expansive state, it illuminates the distances and the
heights, it opens wide upon what happens, what is.
Rule 2) Do it right away! Think of the most expansive, exultant
thing imaginable. Visiting Anghor Wat or the Galapagos? Skiing
Antarctica? Skydiving? Rafting down the Amazon? Go there now! Fear not
that the world will appear more mediocre by contrast after—we will find
new heights and depths in places that before looked closed in their
somnolence.
