Far Out Mr. Brooks, well said. The concepts in this piece should be things that unite us, regardless of politics, sex, or economics. Though we do not have the say political worldview, I look forward to reading your writing in this wonderfully balanced newspaper.
Please keep reminding all of us that joy is the wild card everyone should hope to draw in life's poker hand.
28
Happiness runs through success and by its nature is volatile and temporary. Joy is based on self-respect, respect for others, kindness, fairness, commitment, love. It is self-contained and continuous.
24
Meh. This is kind of a modern distinction. Joy comes from the Latin and Greek. Happiness comes from the Norse.
8
Excellent opinion piece, Mr. Brooks, thank you. I would also suggest that joy is experienced when one is alone with a book, with music, with a film, with a pet, in nature, with a scent that brings back memories, in prayer, and so on.
When my college English students would write that they wanted to be happy, I always suggested that perhaps they might want to feel joy even more. I told them happiness is transitory, but joy comes from deep inside and lasts. Joy is touching heaven on Earth, or the eternal, or whatever you acknowledge is bigger than you.
17
“A rail-thin man with enormous eyes reached across a sea of bodies for my hand. He kept asking me the same thing over and over: You feeling it? I was. My ridiculous heels were killing me, I was terrified I might die, yet I felt simultaneously overwhelmed with delight that ‘Can I Kick It?’ should happen to be playing at this precise moment in the history of the world, and was now morphing into ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ I took the man’s hand. The top of my head flew away. We danced and danced. We gave ourselves up to joy.”.
Well I don't know about Zadie, but... 'the rail-thin man with enormous eyes sure 'smells like bourgeois ecstasy' :)
7
"When you have moments like that you realize there is magic in the world. You can’t create the magic intentionally, but when you are living at that deep affectionate level, it sometimes just combusts within you. A blaze of joy."
Wonderful insight!
But sorry to be a downer - BUT has anyone ever seen trump experience joy in anything except self aggrandizement?
AND he has NO friends!
11
...it’s smarter still to put yourself in situations where you might experience joy."
Hold on here. Yeah, let's be SMART.
What if, just what if, the "situation" where joy inevitably experienced is and always has been within every breath that animates me?
What if joy, being a deeper more lasting experience, does not require an external "situation" to be triggered and felt?
What if it just requires my kind attention towards where it lives, in the human heart?
What if each person has the innate right to feel joy with the coming of each breath, regardless of their past or present condition?
Remember childhood, when joy was so close at hand, when it sprang from simplicity that went beyond cause and effect?
Joy is more than a string of happy times. It is inherent in the design of human nature. It does not need to be created, added on nor paid for.
If humans spent a little more time discovering the joy that already exists, fully accessible within each breath, the human condition would do a 360. It's a given.
Meanwhile, modern tech is inundating us with "smart" gadgets. But how much do I understand my own innate design as being "smart"? Isn't it incredibly smart that the human design includes joy residing in a supremely accessible place, as if life knew that this element was absolutely key to wholesome evolution.
Wouldn't it be "smart" of me to be about discovering this reality whilst the sweet, kind and joyful energy within each breath still animates me?
12
Thank you David for that bit of humanity. It helps in an age of cruelty.
5
Nice message.
However, I would say that this is the least cruel period in recent history.
We are a country at relative peace.
Employment is high. Crime is low.
Terrorism rarely seen here.
Our political divisions are philosophical and not violent.
7
If only we could all live in Switzerland. Try living here in America
9
I liked David Brooks better when he was running interference for George W. Bush, telling us Dick Cheney had a heart, and implying Margaret Thatcher was really Judy Garland. This recent spate of do-gooding prose is an odd departure. David, did you OD on Dale Carnegie?
8
As a regular reader of your column I was pleased to learn you had the opportunity to speak to the graduates at ASU. Your thoughts about happiness vs. joy reminded me of the wonderful book "The Book of Joy" by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams. I highly recommend this book as it goes along with your thoughts on joy. Thank you for your thoughts.
3
Kids are all people with kids can talk about.
3
The nation is constitutionally on fire and Brooks is contemplating happiness vs joy. Sssh.
You are an enabler of this disaster, Mr. Brooks.
10
I coughed up my taco at Brooks's assessment of ASU as "the most innovative university in the world." Citation—unrelated to branding—please?
19
OK, Mr. Brooks, I'll go along with this narrative, if in another column you pontificate on the difference between sadness and despair.
2
David Brooks no dissent
from an evil corporate state
with malevolent intent.
He wallpapers over our significant blemishes
He offers trite banal homilies
to conceal human degenerates.
Mr. Brooks is an American Pangloss full of rapturous joy for our
Social political and economic Dross!
10
Happiness is defeating Trump in 2020. JOY is taking the House, the Senate AND the Oval Office. In other words, a true karmic landslide.
23
How rich and delightful this piece is, Davie! You got me at several moments here. I love the observation about the mother's love being stronger than evolution requires. You make me realize I need to pay closer attention to my friendships. I am a Chicagoan by way of Boulder living in the Bay Area. I have friends all over the place. In this age of moving around, it is not as easy to nourish old friendships while keeping the enthusiasm up on new ones. I struggle with this. I don't see my old friends often enough. My new friends don't know the old me. It is an incomplete situation. Facebook doesn't cut it - not even close. It is nothing, really - one step higher than more frequent Christmas Cards. Face to face time. Leisure time together. A long hike. A weekend together. The highlight of my year is getting together with my old summer camp friends from Camp Highlands for Boys at the annual post camp week. There is so much good in those friendships. I wish it could go on all year. Same for my Semester at Sea friends. I have all these silos...
5
Just a beautiful, thoughtful piece. Loved it.
4
This morning driving to work I found myself moved to tears by Prince Harry's happiness. He is just so in love -- with his wife, his baby, with a world suddenly filled with color and set to music.
His mother loved him so, and I'm so happy for his fulfillment.
I guess in that moment, I felt a kind of joy. -- thegamesmenplay.com
7
I've always thought of happiness as a contrast emotion, a temporary upward spike of glee in response to something positive. I think of joy as more of a collective reflective appraisal of life and relationships.
Unfortunately, for me, feeling much of either of these is really challenging in the Trump/climate change era. I feel a constant and keen awareness of threat to the status quo. I have a low-grade sense of despair as a result, and at a time when otherwise I'm doing particularly well. And, I had always been an irrationally optimistic person until both of these inconvenient truths presented themselves.
7
Friendships matter, and many people don't konw what they are.
Brooks thinks friends share experiences and do things (in effect, work) together. A project and experience define the friendship.
Forms of interaction mark as ways of being-with both sharing of an experience, and conversation.
Friendship can have a political character because the friends both care for common things, and these can be objects of general concern and importance, not just the privatized sharing of tastes and "likes."
Lovers may want to change each other and be changed. Friends respect your boundaries and care without passionate desire. The other who is a neighbor remains "near" but is also at a distance as something of a stranger.
Some languages mark this by distinguishing polite and familiar address. Lacking this, Americans often get wrong both friendship and citizenship.
The "political" character of friendship, recognized in ancient Greece, also involves a certain use of conversation. You can argue with a friend, and it is even possible to do so with joy and no acrimony or unpleasantness. By contrast, one may smile at an adversary and give him a Trojan Horse. When people are too friendly, as Americans in their impatient good-willed eagerness often are, you suspect they are just selling you something; you suspect their gifts are Trojan Horses, concealing something they want.
The question today is: Is capitalism destroying both our public and private life?
3
It is a joy to read David's essays, and I am happy that I have that opportunity.
2
I was very touched by this in your column today: "Friendship is about doing things together. So people build their friendships by organizing activities that are repeated weekly, monthly or annually: picnics, fantasy leagues, book clubs, etc."
Friendship is something I know very little of. I don't have friends and I spend my days alone with Bach, Brahms, and a wonderful Mason&Hamlin Model A. Learning a piece of music I will never share is my joy (I almost typed "Job" like the one in the Bible!). So I really get what you talk about, even though I'm not a people person.
3
The simplest and most spontaneous emotions can also have shadings and doubts. But, there is still no need to talk everthing to death. Or to over-emote like a talkshow audience.
5
Happiness has internal roots. Joy is superficial.
Joy is transcendent. It is the purest proof we are not just physical bodies. So why does so much of religious dogma these days focus on the body? Why is "life" reduced to what happens to the body? Life is so much more than that.
2
David, admit it, you're a Democrat.
4
Excellent column!
Salinger: Happiness is a solid, joy a liquid
31
As someone who rarely feels either of these emotions, this sounds like hair-splitting to be. Any moment i can land on “not sad” is a moment of relief to me.
6
"...relationships are the only means we have to experience joy." False. Displaying or witnessing high competence, extreme skill (a fine "performance" even!) can bring joy beyond simple happiness.
2
Summary of meeting between technologists, Republicans, Democrats, economists in America on how to arrive at ethical A.I. and an enlightened American citizenry:
"First of all, people are emotional creatures, they have emotional wants, and America is founded on the pursuit of happiness. Second, A.I. must support human wants and needs. Therefore what we need to do, and this will support social order, a United States of America, is train people to desire two main emotions, and those emotions 'Joy' and 'Happiness', the one felt when pleasuring others and the other felt when pursuing own ends.
America already tries to satisfy a basic animal satisfaction, gratification in everything from fast food to fast entertainment, therefore it should be a simple matter to split this crude animal appetite into two main desires and directions, the directions of joy and happiness. Furthermore, we can train A.I. to be ethical and oversee society by training it in this simple on/off or dichotomous fashion, form it to experience happiness and joy, to pursue own and simultaneously human ends, and to carefully watch people to make sure they are switching back and forth healthily and ethically between joy and happiness, realizing own and other's ends in society.
All that remains really is determine stimuli to shuttle people back and forth between the two main emotions and to sharply constrict vocabulary in society so limited range of emotion is described and to devise A.I. to oversee the whole."
My understanding of joy is that it is ephemeral. It is that short-lived quality that makes the experience so delicious. The sight of a butterfly in dappled light. A run in powder snow. Watching grandchildren having a good time. If we're distracted, we miss it. If we're present and aware,the opportunity to experience those short bursts of joyousness are everywhere.
4
In church, I have often heard that happiness is kind of like the temperature, while joy was like a thermostat. That is, one was dependent on the circumstances, while the other was not (or was perhaps dependent upon God). I'm not sure that ever really took root in my soul, for I have found it hard to be joyful if I am truly sad (or unhappy, assuming that is the opposite of sadness).
But this article seems to point out a truth that I think informs the church version. Yes, happiness depends on what is happening to YOU, but joy is the bigger picture. And that would work for the deeply spiritual person, too, I think. To know that God is at work in the universe would surely trump a speeding ticket or a lost job. It is faith that all will be well, I suppose.
But I want to add something additional....
"Happy" and "Joyful" are often used interchangeably. But TO ME, happiness is more akin to calm contentment, a feeling of overall satisfaction, say. But joy is all of that with some sort of spiritual carbonation! It is more closely aligned with overflowing, bubbling over, and the such. It is more toward that celebratory end of the scale.
Even in the quietness of, say, viewing the glorious Rockies, there is flooding of the heart (and often the eyes). Joy often creates gratitude. But grateful to Whom? When we feel that, it just might be the best argument for God there is, even if your brain is having none of it.
1
There can be no joy in Mudville these days
4
Why be satisfied with happiness when you can be joyful...happiness is wonderful but short lived. Joy remains even in the midst of pain and sorrow
3
The part about Zadie Smith put me in mind of a Bob Dylan classic, one I remember hearing and dancing to ecstatically many years ago:
"Yes to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow."
7
"The thing the wisest people say about friendship is this: Lovers stand face to face staring into each other’s eyes. But friends stand side by side, staring at the things they both care about. Friendship is about doing things together."
This is a male-centric view of friendship. Female friendships are less about being side-by-side while golfing and fantasy-league-ing together, and much more about being face-to-face while sharing stories, ideas and private feelings and thoughts with one another. There are many different ways to experience happiness and joy that don't fit your stated parameters.
I don't think you are sexist, Mr. Brooks, just not woke.
77
This is an unfair hit on Mr. Brooks’ thoughtful words. Does being woke mean you obtain a license to say insensitive things under the guise of sensitivity?
45
@She-persisted
Oh, goodness, what a barb launched at David, whose writings about the heart are always compelling.
I'm a woman who would be absolutely cowed to be face-to-face with someone who could be so cavalierly cutting when I'd just shared "stories, ideas and private feelings."
30
@She-persisted I'd gently submit that the author's images of face-to-face vs. side-to-side were more metaphorical, less literal, more about how the souls relate to one another than how the bodies are positioned in space.
I'd also respectfully submit that telling someone they're "not woke" comes across to my (old and likely biased) eyes as righteous and dismissive, and if so doesn't resonate with any understanding of "wokeness" that I have.
39
Joy, happiness and the difference between the two?
I see no essential, meaningful difference between the two in our day and age, certainly no difference expected and cared about by anyone you meet not to mention the political economy. You might as well start talking about all the different names for and types of snow with an eskimo, and it's doubtful an eskimo would say the distinctions are important anymore what with climate change. No one cares about snow or any differences between emotions in broad category 'happiness'; rather any number of forces, not to mention political economy, are invested in just observing what causes you to pause for moment in something of animal satisfaction, and how to more or less and as rapidly as possible round you off in 'contentment'. There isn't the slightest bit of interest in subtle differences of emotion, let alone establishing hierarchy, let alone trying to plot a route for people to the rarest and most exquisite emotions and probably, insofar as thoughts 'rest' on emotions, thoughts.
It's absurd to talk about distinctions between happiness and joy when no one even in passing holds these distinctions and brings up other words such as sublime, content, exquisite, thrilling and so on. Society is so confoundedly low, so base, not only is there no real thinking which is appreciated you can't even get a wide spectrum of emotion in your life and a widely used vocabulary for such but are rather snowed under in a warming world of just snow.
2
That Zadie Smith quote is from a scene in which she’s high on Ecstasy and the rail-thin man is a total stranger, from an essay in which she tears apart the concept of Joy. I like the message, but that quotation needs revisiting.
6
At a time when the political news is so depressing for us liberals, it’s refreshing to see Mr. Brooks write words of beauty:
"Happiness usually involves a victory for the self. Joy tends to involve the transcendence of self. Happiness comes from accomplishments. Joy comes when your heart is in another. Joy comes after years of changing diapers, driving to practice, worrying at night, dancing in the kitchen, playing in the yard and just sitting quietly together watching TV."
Thank you!
My grandparents' language, Yiddish, had a word for this--nachis--the feeling you get from your children's and grandchildren's accomplishments and not your own. It is impossible to feel until you have invested in someone else's life to the hilt. Without the risk and the investment, the joy is less profound, but hoo boy, when it does come, it is like no other feeling in the world.
57
@Ms. Beautiful!
2
ASU did well on their choice. That was a solid, coming of age-appropriate commencement speech.
2
The roots of addiction in our culture comes down to a lack of joy and satisfaction in life. Our external culture is so vibrant, yet in terms of character and personality and joy, Americans in general seem bland and more conforming than ever.
2
Great, moving column. It goes right to the heart. I really liked your interview on The Ezra Klein Show podcast as well. Bravo!
1
What a beautiful article. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
2
Joy is a short term event, happiness lasts longer. That's why it is easier to be joyful, but more difficult to be happy. Momentary pleasures, even instant gratification, are good but we need to strive for what makes life worth living, with minimum ups and down possible. Part of that happiness comes from contentment with the help of moderation and common sense. So college graduation brings joy to the young ones, but their happiness will depend on their future choices, hard work, and luck.
Surely, Happiness versus Joy can be further qualified. My own dozen distinctions would include, but not be limited to:
Happiness Joy
Arthur Miller William Shakespeare
Wolfgang A. Mozart Franz Schubert
David Brooks H. L. Mencken
Agatha Christie Arthur Conan Doyle
Irving Berlin Richard Rodgers
Charles Dickens Mark Twain
Robert Wagner Ed Koch
Roy Campanella Yogi Berra
Placido Domingo Giovanni Martinelli
Marlon Brando Spencer Tracy
Emily Dickenson Edgar Allen Poe
Cheeseburger Cheeseburger Deluxe
The only one of these that is not subject to reassessment is the last, and I await maturity to determine if any or all of my other selections are only temporary preferences.
2
What kinds of things might we do, as a nation, that would allow us to feel joy? How would it feel to mobilize our significant resources and really do something about climate change or provide affordable health care to those in need? Unfortunately, we pursue individual happiness relentlessly (though we don't seem to be all that happy compared to other nations). Individuals aside, as a nation, we are focused on the wrong thing.
3
"A.S.U. is the most innovative university in the world." Huh? Details, please...
Happiness was the final day my military obligation. Joy was leaving Vietnam alive and mostly unscathed.
USN 1967 - 71
Vietnam 1968
2
ASU may or may not be The Most innovative university in the world, but it is definitely up there as far as innovation goes. Look it up. Its president, Michael Crow, has done some pretty amazing things.
How wonderful it is to have Arizona State University acknowledged as the most innovative university in the world. It is that, and more. Michael Crow, the president of the university has transformed ASU from a somewhat sleepy campus to one that is brimming with excellence in all areas. 5 Nobel prize winners are on faculty. 195 Fulbright scholars. MacArthur genius award winners, Pulitizer prize winners. Pioneering research, creating partnerships with industry and commerce, teaching students to think outside the box. I could go on and on, but don't ever doubt that ASU is truly one of the great universities ever. Look it up.
2
There is happiness in receiving a wonderful gift whereas there is joy in giving one.
4
I lived in Northern Europe before I moved to the US.
Joy requires time (holidays, single job, reasonable working hours) and a mind free of worries about basic needs like enough money for food and housing, healthcare, good public schools for all children without a Darwinian system like in our Democratic cities, affordable college, etc.
What percentage of Americans can truly enjoy themselves without at least one of those worries pulling the joy down? 5%? 10%?
3
For what it is worth: In my experience happiness is a feeling and therefore transient. Joy is a quality, can be cultivated, and not dependent on the circumstances of my life.
2
Love this post, David. Reading it brought me joy!
Joy has become, for me, the true miracle. Perhaps the only one. It emerges magically from the soil of deepest grief. Unexpected and welcome. How can this be, I wonder?
65
What we saw yesterday from Prince Harry. The absolute epitome of joy and happiness rolled into one big moment in life. Watching him announce the birth of their first child brought tears to my eyes as I remembered that same euphoric moment of awe and wonderment.
4
A better way to define the moments is that the grace of God is present in the goods of creation.
2
Perhaps is was cosmic irony that, when I finished Mr. Brooks' essay with the line, "a blaze of joy," I shifted my eyes (in my online version of the Times) to see a link to an article titled, "At Auschwitz Exhibition, a Witness to a History He Can Never Forget."
A reminder that human behavior is complex indeed, and Mr. Brooks' effusion concerning happiness and joy should not blind us to the meanness and baseness that is also, inextricably, part of the human condition.
1
Profound joy is what I experience in the midst of nature.
26
@Michelle Teas A most definitive yes to you. I experienced pure joy last evening watching the green luminescence of click beetles dancing in the humid air.
6
There is such joy in doing something for someone you care for - a sibling, parent, friend. American society seems to have forgotten that, with an over-emphasis on self.
5
The idea that joy comes with transcendence of self and caring for others was expressed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as: “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of
2
I absolutely agree that there is a distinction between happiness and joy. Joy, to me, is a "deep gladness" that transcends one's circumstances in the moment. It is possible, therefore, that a person can experience joy even in times of terrible sadness or personal loss. Happiness, by way of contrast, is a surface-level emotional reaction to something positive happening in any one given moment in time and is easily blown away by the passing of the moment or a change in the wind.
I don't suspect that your point was to say that joy only comes through delighting in others and the good things that happen to them, and I agree that, at least, the incidence of joy is vastly increased where we are with, serving, and loving others. Frederick Buechner once wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger coincide.” I've found this to be true in my own life.
2
Joy is when the narrating parts of our brain take a back seat to the simple state of presence and "beingness".
Joy is the experience, happiness (or stress) is the internal internal interpreter, I liken to a newscaster, telling us what is up. If it is deemed enough it is happiness, if deemed insufficient, it is stress.
The problem is that the internal interpreter, AKA the ego, like all news outlets, tends towards fear and critique, and can ruin any potentially joyful experience. What it Zadie had thought "they will judge my dancing?".
When just being is enough, the music, the love, the affection become sometimes overwhelmingly joyful expressions of this beautiful thing called life. The newscaster goes home to snuggle with her kids on the couch. Ahhhh!
Challenge your inner newscaster!
4
I read sentiments about friends such as what Mr. Brooks wrote and it seems totally alien to myself and the people I know. His description of friends sounds admirable and desirable but it also seems the pervue of the well-off and comfortable. Many of us are struggling every day and night to just make it through to the next day to either seek out or enjoy the types of friendships he describes. This is apparently to our detriment but it also sure doesn't feel good to find out yet again many of us don't have the luxury to clear what seems a pretty high bar for personal relationships. Like the "everything has to be awesome!" crowd this "giving yourself up to joy" thing seems a bit out of reach when one is busy searching for money for doctor bills, enough food to eat and a safe place to sleep.
1
@Hugh CC I work with the homeless, many of whom have been in and out of jail or prison and whose incomes are far below the poverty level. I also know multi millionaires and members of the Cosmos Club. There are members of each "class," and those in between, who regularly experience what Mr. Brooks describes as joy. There are also those who experience life as you appear to do.
Experiencing this level of joy depends not on ones financial status, but on ones' ability to transcend the obvious and odious issues one faces to experience and embrace gratitude for what one has, not what one lacks.
I don't know the specifics of you personal circumstances, but I hope you are one day able to experience the joy he describes, even if happiness is sometimes fleeting and the harsh realities of life make it more complicated than any of us would want it to be.
4
David,
You have brought me to tears this morning. I have been watching you grow in love and open to all the many (non-intellectual) dimensions of our human spirit. I honor you and your insights, and your ability to so carefully, thoughtfully, and respectfully 'put it out there' for us to see. This is great service, and we need it so much at this time.
Thank you.
Happiness, Trumps tax returns in the hands of Congress. Joy, Mueller testifying before same.
6
Happiness comes from the mind. Something “good” happens and we are happy. In this age of social media we live more and more in the mind. But joy comes from the heart where “the love you get is equal to the love you give.”
1
Mr. Brooks, thank you for this wonderful piece with your perspective on the difference between happiness and joy. I never thought of it in the way you described but as I dig myself out of another bout with depression, I have received much joy from caring friends and strangers in the mental health field. Fortunately, I have socked away decades of happiness and joy to fill up spaces left empty by grief, loss and exhaustion
And dancing in heels! Yes! Pinched toes and aching arches override emotional ouches.
.
50
"Staying vulnerable in an age of cruelty?"
Is there any better measure of David Brooks' cluelessness and general irrelevance?
For most of the people in this country, on this planet, not to mention a good part of the biosphere in general, NOT being vulnerable to cruelty is the challenge.
Brooks and his ilk are so removed, protected and privileged, he's got the enviable "problem" of STAYING vulnerable.
New York Times, your revenue and profit problem does not stem from the challenge of the Internet, so much as the small percentage of humans you deem worth your time to address.
Change your name to The Certain Better Addresses in Manhattan Times, and get honest about your mandate.
"A blaze of Joy"! If I had more to say it would not be enough. I never miss your column because I always read it and hear it on PBS.
I recently heard a sermon where the pastor compared Biblical references to 'satisfaction' and 'joy', citing that there are hundreds more references to joy than satisfaction because joy is a shared or collective experience and satisfaction is a personal, reflective one. Both feel good, but joy is amplified by its outward-facing quality and its ability to be shared broadly. David Brooks' piece here is another take on this truth.
2
"A.S.U. is the most innovative university in the world."
By what standard? I don't mean to dis ASU students but that's a very bold statement left hanging.
Speaking of raining on peoples' parades, or graduations in this case, love is not a distinctly human emotion. Nor is feeling joy over reproductive success. I've studied more biological anthropology than I really care to admit. Everything we feel about joy is completely in line with evolutionary expectations. Biology isn't demanding anything. You as a human are conforming to it.
Let me break this down a little bit. Humans are a K-strategy species. We are large animals reliant on stable environments and density dependent interactions. In other words, we are social creatures who invest a lot in our children thus requiring social engagement.
However, the same thing is true for elephants, dolphins, whales, buffalo, wolves, giraffes... basically any animal with a long gestation period, a lowish birth rate, and a long maturation period. That's humans in a nutshell. Love and joy are a survival technique.
Not surprisingly, scientists have figured out how to link your instinct for selflessness to genetic relationship. In surprisingly consistent proportions, you are more likely to sacrifice yourself for your own child than your sibling's child than your cousin's child and so on. This has been proven. RadioLab even did a segment on it.
You don't love your child more than evolution requires. You are a product of your evolution.
There is no difference between happiness and joy. There are few who enjoy each of them or just one everyday of their lifetimes. They are as transitory as every other human emotion which we seek to attain or experience while on this planet. Correction: there are some wise men like the Dalai Lama who wrote that "the motion of our life is toward happiness." He may have found an answer to the elusive quest for both joy and happiness through the practice of compassion. The permanent, happy and joyful smile on his face seems to affirm it.
1
I'm trying to figure out if Brooks is here channeling Yoda or the Dalai Lama.
Anyone who has ever seriously meditated or engaged in a conscious contemplation of self knows the difference between happiness and joy.
However here is my example:
Happiness is seeing the new puppy for the first time.
Joy is when that puppy licks your nose to show his love and you kiss his to show yours.
3
“A blaze of joy.”
I am still confused about what Brooks has become. These commentaries belong in the self-help daily reflections sections at Barns Noble. He might as well say, “rocketed into the fourth dimension” of serenity. Joy is fine, but being content seems harder to attain.
2
David Brooks columns of late seem to be more about personal fulfillment rather then politics and governing. While I enjoy his columns and his insights it strikes me that he has a least in part thrown up his hands at finding solutions to our steep decline in governance.
2
It's challenging sometimes, Mr. Brooks.
You have one political party (Democrats) promising they'll make everyone's lives easier.
You have the other political party (Republicans) promising they'll make everyone's lives better.
Happiness and Joy are stuck in the middle, with me.
@Erica Smythe Politics is an increasingly ineffective tool for transformation. Brooks appears to be working "from the inside out" at this point. Thank goodness there are those who embrace the political sphere. We need them. But we also need change of heart. That is what I see hi speaking to.
Bravo for David to search for hope and well-being, for flourishing, in these desperate times. Conservatives like him are, and should be, clinically depressed. The America they used to champion is nowhere to be seen, and it was their party and some version of their ideas that took us here. So he, and we, turn inwards, searching for hope, for an alternative to the despair that’s killing so many of us. His message: find glory and joy in life, but don’t look for it in his employer or in either political party. That stuff is,
Iike our President, bankrupt. Instead, shrink into your concrete life with others. It’s all that’s left us.
Mr Brooks,
You have dug to the depths of human feelings and revealed to us pure emotions. In this era of ego, which can be so destructive, you have given us something tangible that will take us out of ourselves. Thank you for this contemplative moment.
85
Happiness for the GOP : Winning, and Power.
Joy for Democrats: a slice of the Cake, for Everyone.
Period.
19
@Phyliss Dalmatian Thank you Phyliss. I knew I could count on you to call them as you see them.
7
"The Difference Between Happiness and Joy"
Oh yeah, happiness will be the day Trump is no longer in office. Joy will be when he's convicted in NY for the first of his crimes.
71
Joy settles on us when we transcend our ordinary self and experience. This can happen in friendship as well as love, as David Brooks elaborates. As others note in their comments, it also can happen in nature, preferably wilderness. Another way, not articulated but present in his dance example, involves being in a vibrant group of others.
Group ecstasy was recognized by the Greeks (literally "standing outside oneself") and has been a part of most (all?) human cultures. This group experience is also dangerous since it plays a significant role in us-them tribal culture: the incitement to war and attesting to one's truths and favored status.
Tradition-oriented people are better at experiencing it through time-tested ways: sports (pseudo-war) contests, participatory religious events, and religious or ideological testifying (including political rallies). Part of the lack of joy in non-theistic, disillusioned progressives is the loss of these experiences. We search for them in ways of our Western traditions (Taoist retreat to nature and Buddhist meditation). We need to rediscover and invent more ways to experience without reliance on a demonized other the deep, transcendental experiences our nature allows.
2
Mr. Brooks my first cynical reaction to your heart felt piece was negativity and a reaction I notice has not been published perhaps for the best. The world seems full of dangers and a fear based reaction seems natural, but it also cuts us off from the possibility of joy, something are beat up world sorely lacks.
My dog playing with a ball a ball in the backyard seems to know pure joy especially if I join him. Perhaps I could experience pure joy just watching my wonderful wife shopping at the store or now on line, she seems to enJOY it so much. OK there goes my cynicism again Take a deep breath and start over.
6
Thank you. well written.
1
from the day he was born and forever, i always let me son know "you bring me joy!" thank you this piece. t
2
Mr. Brooks, it's hard to be a young adult period. In today's America it's hard to be anything if you aren't rich. Most of us are not and we've experienced plenty of anguish over that fact. We cannot afford to take the time to be introspective, to fulfill some of our deepest desires, to be the kind of people we might want to be. The GOP and the corporatocracy have seen to that.
I read the laments of young people who are just starting out. Those laments are the same ones we had back in the 1980s. Finding a job before the grace period of not paying back the loans expires. Worrying about adult responsibilities. I remember the angst of some of the older people from then. As someone who is now numbered among the older people I've noticed that our complaints and worries are far worse. We have to worry about being unable to retire, unable to find affordable housing, unable to afford medical care. And we get to worry about our children's futures.
For me joy would be finding a job where I can at least pretend to save money for a non-existent decent future. Happiness would be seeing my elected officials working for all Americans rather than the 1% who don't need more tax breaks, or more corporate welfare courtesy of the various levels of government. Happiness would be knowing that people aren't faced with the non-choice of paying bills or going without medical care, food, etc.
5/7/2019 11:16am
24
We have always known the distinction. When our two sons moved 3000 miles away we visited often and had a great time. That was happiness. Then we moved to be with them after the first pregnancy occurred. That’s joy.
2
Mr. Brooks article has generated many varied, interesting and enlightening comments. I’m enjoying them as much as I do his original article.
It’s very refreshing to see that we ( individually and collectively) still examine these two important aspects of human existence.
Thank you Mr. Brooks.
87
Happiness: a one year old grandson.
Joy: he blew me a kiss, unsolicited.
Happiness: trees exist.
Joy: a dogwood in bloom on a sparkling day.
Happiness: our government working for the common good.
Joy: an inspiring speech by a kind, caring, sincere, politician.
48
I wonder if the party Mister Brooks championed all these years, opposite his values, has driven this agonizing examination of humanity.
3
Happiness fondly remembers when Obama was POTUS.
Joy is the longing for Trump's presidency to be over.
34
Happiness is short-term; it needs to continually repeat, reinforce itself. Joy, when experienced, is long-term, bringing memory of it into the present.
2
There is happiness, joy, and then there is contentment. Contentment lasts when happiness and joy have faded. Contentment comes from being satisfied with your life. How many people are satisfied with their lives?
8
Happiness is seeing Trump lose the next election.
Joy is seeing him slink away without contesting the result.
13
Yes Mr. Brooks, it is a cruel time. And you certainly did your part with your forty years of cheerleading or apologies for the cruelties of a bigoted, racist, unfeeling Republican Party that has worked ceaselessly only for billionaires, banks, polluters, and the Koch Brothers while relentlessly opposing universal health care, sensible regulations on business and industry, rights for minorities, a rise in the minimum wage, equal pay for women, any action on climate change (for which, one day Republicans will sit in the docket at Nuremberg style trials) and anything else of possible benefit to the poor or the working middle class, which you helped Reagan (your personal saint) and friends systematically dismantle. You promoted tax cuts for billionaires, you were all in favor of the ruinous Iraqi War. You have demonized and vilified Obama and Democrats in general, as per your other great mentor, Newt Gingrich, who began the destruction of our political debate and the debasement of our political rhetoric. You should be very proud of the current administration: Donald Trump is a direct results of your decades long efforts.
Your touchy feely sociological columns are all so lovely, but what you really should be crafting is an apology to the American people, for your part in the Republican ruination of a once great country.
160
@Ignatz Farquad
“...but what you really should be crafting is an apology to the American people, for your part in the Republican ruination of a once great country....”
I would say, don’t hold your breath.
7
@Ignatz Farquad
Yes. Thank you.
Great comment. Keep it up.
Billy on.
11
@Ignatz Farquad "Your touchy feely sociological columns are all so lovely, but what you really should be crafting is an apology to the American people, for your part in the Republican ruination of a once great country."
I'm pretty sure that's precisely what his columns over the past couple of years are.
People believe you're sorry only when you demonstrate that you know why you should be so.
4
Whoah! Mr. Brooks, you are often too conservative for my tastes, but today’s piece hits it out of the park! Thanks!
69
One of the best columns, no, one of the best things, I have read in a long time.
6
I read the column in my hypothesis such that Brooks was asked to answer. What is the difference between happiness and joy? Love is better than friendship, or vice versa? If I have to choose, on which I have to place my life to be more meaningful? Love or friendship? Those are not easy questions to answer, because the answers depend on the lexicon. Then, ultimately Brooks has to answer. Joy or happiness, which is more to human life? The columnist was cornered as such one after another. C’mon, give him a break. Don’t make him to be a classification guru. Joy and happiness are interactive. True lovers are transcendental. Friends can look into their eyes while talking about each other’s life as if lovers. Or, read St. Thomas about happiness. The pre-modern philosophy was thelogically joyful.
Mr. Brooks,
I do hope you receive happiness and joy from your work. If you do, I’d expect you don’t read these comments.
Thank you for this thoughtful column.
3
I realized a long time ago that to find your own happiness and joy, you must celebrate the happiness and joy of others. You can't resent other people's joy and expect to find your own. This means letting go or jealousy and envy. It means we're all deeply interconnected and the joy of others is something we can tap into and share. And they can tap into ours.
12
Happiness is but the absence of fear. Fear (or you may call it anxiety) about something that happened in the near or distant past, and fear about the near or distant future. That's why people say they are happy when they are fully engrossed in the present moment, via an activity they enjoy - running, yoga, cooking, knitting, reading a good book, going to a performance...You want to be happy, then live in the present. Right now is the only moment. Yesterday is finished and tomorrow does not exist.
8
I appreciate this article. My oldest son will be graduating college this weekend, and I excited for him. He is leaving university as a young adult -- he entered as an immature 18 yo and has matured into a kind, considerate and thoughtful person. He has had challenges, but has learned and grown. I am looking forward to his future, but more importantly I am looking forward to his excitement and anticipation for the next stage of his life.
2
"Magic is not just a procedure; it's a way of life." From Thomas Moore's, "The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life".
You CAN create magic intentionally.
3
Rachel Remen ("Kitchen Table Wisdom") has a lovely quote on joy vs. happiness which I find equally inspiring and challenging:
"I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us. Rather than the warrior who fights toward a specific outcome and therefore is haunted by the specter of failure and disappointment, it is the lover drunk with the opportunity to love despite the possibility of loss, the player for whom playing has become more important than winning or losing.
The willingness to win or lose moves us out of an adversarial relationship to life and into a powerful kind of openness. From such a position, we can make a greater commitment to life. Not only pleasant life, or comfortable life, or our idea of life, but all life. Joy seems more closely related to aliveness than to happiness."
4
Perhaps it is a middle class luxury to philosophize over the difference between happiness and joy, but Mr. Brooks has written about something that is profoundly at the root of the human experience, to human beings at all times and in all circumstances.
Please let's give David Brooks a lot of credit for having the thoughtful intellect, courage and generosity to have written this piece. Some of the comments here are nitpicking about what David has written, but these complaints are "not being able to see the forest through the trees."
Nobody should contest what these legitimate complaints are about, but at the same time should keep in mind that Mr. Brooks is offering a profoundly spiritual viewpoint. Mr. Brooks is providing an insight by which all human beings can look deep inside themselves (as Mr. Brooks has done) and find the strength and power to intentionally alter their emotional/spiritual response to life's tragedies and difficulties.
We need to focus more on the optimistic human potential of happiness and joy to help lift ourselves and others out of the downward pull of obsessive attachments to depressive emotions that are not good for society or for one's own emotional, spiritual and physical health.
8
I don't know if you can always define happiness or joy, because it is a very personal feeling, but I liked Brooks definition. Happiness is concrete, down to earth, solid. Joy is soaring, warm and euphoric.
4
@Ken
Joy can also be deep and quiet.
3
Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
It is nice to read an uplifting column.
4
"The mind can never be happy because happiness lies in being outside the mind." I think this is what David Brooks is trying to say -- the basis of most spiritual traditions.
2
Happiness, as I recall, comes from a word meaning luck . I would then think of happiness as the ability to recognize good luck when it falls onto your lap. It would not necessarily be accompanied by an overwhelming emotional response.
Joy seems to refer more to pleasure such as, "Did you enjoy dinner?".
"We live in a cruel time, when people attack you when they see a hint of vulnerability."
Looks like Mr. B. is having trouble owning and digesting his own darkness, so everything must be sweetness and light. Hence the need to lecture others about Virtue and Goodness. In truth, the author's nice words fail to resonate with the volumes of smug nastiness that issued from his pen in the past and supported the "cruel time" we are now living in.
8
So, I was wondering whether this op-ed which Brooks wrote in 2003 in order to soften up the supposedly innocent American public for the war crimes he felt were necessary to properly prosecute a war of aggression based on lies (the supreme international war crime from which all else emanates, as Justice Jackson put it, more or less) was an act of happiness or of joy: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/opinion/a-burden-too-heavy-to-put-down.html. Or, rather, was it how Brooks stayed vulnerable in an age of cruelty he's unfortunately lacked the power, means, publicity, and platform to undermine?
Pro tip: Brooks is in the process of continuing his rebranding. The New Yorker's review of his book got it basically right, noting that this new self-aggrandizing/branding was at best the higher narcissism. The Atlantic's, at least the one by the head of something called "Ethics and Public Policy Center," which prides itself on applying "Judeo-Christian ethics" to public policy, found Brooks a useful avatar.
And so it goes. Sure, pundits gotta pund, but I don't see why anyone else needs to go along like a mindless fan.
As for Brooks, soon there'll be a war in Venezuela and/or Iran for him to cheer on. Then he'll finally have his joy back.
The rest of us can reject this pose and find joy by reorganizing society so it's not omnicidal. Fixable institutionalized immorality lies literally all around us.
How's that for "unselfish purpose"? Don't hear that from Brooks, do you?
7
@Doug Tarnopol
We all can grow and change. Give Dave Brooks that right.
4
I can imagine the current occupant of the WH reading this and either being completely perplexed by such ideas, or laughing to himself and thinking, "suckers".
8
Living one's life in a bubble and trying to forget that Donald Trump, MR. REPUBLICAN, is tearing down our children's future faster than we can build it is one way to go, I suppose, Mr. Brooks. I think I'll start smoking cannabis.
The only good commencement speech I have ever heard (and the shortest) is the one by Australian comedian Tim Minchin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEezZD71sc
1
@Jay David Thanks for the link - delightful! I feel cleansed.
1
I can't say the distinction between joy and happiness described here resonates with me. I think of joy as more intense, more transient form of happiness.
For me, joy need not have anything to do with others. I have felt great joy, sitting alone, admiring the glory of nature. Joy simply lies on a continuum of positive feelings. Contentment, happiness, joy.
11
@mosselyn
Agree - joy can be quiet and deep. I remember experiencing joy from creating a beautiful piece from a lump of clay.
2
I wanted to dislike this article but because of the writing, forgot that David Brooks was writing it. Nice work. Maybe the Times should ask Zadie Smith to also write columns.
2
I don’t like this Brooks’ column, not because it’s bad or wrong—when it comes to the concepts of joy and happiness he broods over, Brooks is likely right—it’s just that I don’t like people telling me how to feel. Critics say Chekhov was a master of the short story because he never told us why his characters acted as they did but he showed us how they were, what it felt like to be them. A big difference. Being real like this, not needing to have it explained, is a form of happiness and joy, too.
5
Thank you, David Brooks. You write movingly about a certain part of being human: the part that is capable of openness, love, high spirits, and pure, positive feelings. These are the best things we can experience. None of the rest of it matters - conquest, achievement, power, riches, and influence are all things that grow out of self-love. Real love pours outward, self-love pulls inward. The former provides true happiness. The latter corrupts.
1
An interesting interpretation of joy. I always took the difference between happiness and joy to mean that. I have also understood that difference to be that happiness is temporary, fleeting, something that comes from outside of us. A beautiful sunrise/sunset. A warm summer day spent on a hammock with a loved one. The first smile of the day from my wife after she wakes up. They are pleasant, they make us happy, and then they are gone, nothing but memories to occasionally warm us. Happiness though can be snatched away from us at the death of a loved one. A vacation plan that suddenly caves in. A bad night's sleep.
Joy, however, is to me, something completely different. It comes from within. It is completely independent of happiness. It warms us from within even in the coldest of situations. Joy keeps us going when all else is gone, even though it feels like life has become totally bereft. Joy is not easily dimmed. It bubbles up from inside like an unquenchable spring that no man can plug up.
To be sure, we have all experienced pain from loss, struggles and the myriad calamities of life, and at that time, happiness seems all but lost. But it is joy we feel, reflecting on the memories of long lives spent together. Joy at loved ones' successes. Joy that keeps us on an even keel when the harsh cares of the world don't matter to us one whit.
3
Joy is the security of a roof over your head and over those you love, food on the table for you and them, a good education for your kids, and adequate healthcare when your loved ones are sick. Without those things the “blooming of a whole person” wilts. “Joy is the present that life gives you as you give away your gifts.” But the gifts you have to give are compromised if you have to decide to fill your prescription or pay the rent.
So it is amazing to me that Brooks can write such a wonderfully human piece and yet not disown his political party – the Republicans – who have unflinchingly pursued the destruction of the basic needs that all people require in order to achieve happiness and joy, who have built a wall between humans and the transcendent.
But for Brooks individual transcendence will magically move mountains and put food on the table and pay the rent. It’s a bottom-up energy, spreads person to person, without government intervention. It runs on “magic.”
Brooks is right to a point – but transcendence alone is not enough. Transcendence is not going to convince conservatives in Congress to stop trying to destroy healthcare – or the earth - or to cease being racist or homophobic. These won’t be solved by turning the other cheek; it’s requires a fight. Otherwise transcendence ironically is just self-indulgent, a way of absolving yourself of responsibility, a drug, a distraction that like dopamine produces ephemeral results, but no lasting collective product.
15
If David Brooks is so wise, why did his life's work culminate in Donald J. Trump?
206
...of course he was one iof the Iraq war cheerleaders...consider all the joy and happiness that created..@jrd...
41
@jrd Gee I just feel tingly all over. Is it joy? Can I pay for my prescription drugs with this feeling? Can I buy a new coat for my daughter to replace the worn one she is embarrassed to wear? Maybe the bank will accept it in place of a mortgage payment that I don’t have. Will the company that laid me off re-hire me if I know the difference between happiness and joy? Hope springs eternal! Thanks David!
25
@jrd
We all make mistakes. We are constantly evolving.
I certainly know I am and do make mistakes.
The question becomes, do I learn from them.
Perhaps that is the path of David Brooks.
20
Happiness is capitalism. Joy is democracy.
Happiness is ASU's Class of 2019 enjoying their graduation. Joy will be when higher education's financial burden doesn't outweigh the diploma's benefit.
Happiness is a booming stock market. Joy will be jobs with dignity and a smarter, kinder balance of wealth across all socio-econonic classes.
Happiness, for some, is the right to own any type of gun without restriction. Joy will be saving thousands of lives every year by adding restrictions.
Happiness is energy to power our modern lives. Joy is the beautiful natural world and delicate ecosystem of this planet on which we live.
Joy is your loved one receiving important health care. Happiness will be added when that health care becomes affordable.
Happiness is your political party winning a victory. Joy will be the whole country realizing we're all in this together and our similarities far outweigh our differences.
Finally, Happiness is the Rolling Stones. Joy, of course, is the Beatles.
464
@Chip Leon
Also the Grateful Dead
9
@Chip Leon
Your post brought me both happiness and joy...
happiness because of how I felt reading it, and joy because 73 (and counting) other readers share that feeling.
31
@Chip Leon
Yes! Joy is The Beatles! Thank you for your over all excellent reply! Perfect
20
I am mystified by Brooks' claim that ASU is "the most innovative university in the world." What could this possibly mean?
213
@sfarmer Only they were innovative enough to decide that this year's honorarium should go to him, not somebody else.
30
@sedanchair, when I read your comment I burst out laughing. Seriously. You have made my day! I AM FULL OF BOTH JOY AND HAPPINESS now.
15
@sfarmer I was puzzled, too.... then I realized that it was printed on a piece of promotional literature from ASU, and Brooks felt obliged to repeat it.... (I'm guessing!)
9
I like this piece, not because it’s right but because it gets me thinking. I don’t think the difference between happiness and joy lies in service to self or others. Happiness seems to me to be the exercise of all you are in the service of higher things, like truth, beauty, justice. Joy is the euphoria of innocence, the overflow of glorious excess energy—Zadie’s dance. Happiness is a practice; joy is an experience.
We do live in a cruel time, Mr. Brooks. But its cruelty does not lie in the tendency of the human animal to attack vulnerabilities. That has always been the case; it’s a constant of our nature—and not all for the bad either. What makes our time cruel, though again, not distinctively so, is that in the midst of so much plenty, a few systematically hog the resources needed for the happiness and joy of so many others.
320
@Chris Buczinsky
Thank you. Being anhedonic myself, I am always trying to figure out what goes through the minds and souls of normal people, by observing the ways they use these words. With very little success. Your remarks and those by others here confirm what I always suspected: even you normal folks cannot agree among yourselves what joy or happiness mean, or whether they even are the same thing.
6
@Hugo van den Berg,
Picasso, by some accounts, was once approached by a man in the street who asked 'why can you not paint normal people'. The artist paused and replied to the onlooker 'I am not sure of your meaning'. 'Well, people the way they are, like this', continued the interrogator, taking a photograph of his wife from his wallet. Picasso looked carefully at the above, and after a pause, added 'she seems a little small'.
If at first you do not succeed, try, try again, and you might be able to distinguish a moment in time of joy on your pursuit to happiness.
9
@Chris Buczinsky Beautifully expressed Chris, perhaps a nice way of saying our Uber
capitalist society, as well as our rapidly declining environment, might benefit handsomely from a shot of socialism; I couldn’t agree more.
18
Not bad, to muse on happiness and joy. They are, of course, not a dualism. Mr. Brooks always seems to think in dualisms ("there are two kinds of...whatever".
But probably worth the read just to forget about Blondie for 5 minutes. And to remember moments of happiness and joy. But, too, to remember that both -- and everything else -- are transient and cannot be captured by memory, really. The present is where we live, it turns out, and that's where happiness and joy live, and the odd thing is that particular conditions don't always matter that much.
3
“Happiness” for millions of Americans would be the collective response upon the removal of our Fake President from office, either through his Congressional impeachment and conviction, or as the result of a resounding electoral defeat. “Joy” for these same millions would ensue upon his long-avoided, accountable imprisonment for decades of felonious behaviors both as a private cItizen and while in office.
15
There is little happiness or joy for most Americans barely getting by. Read 'Democracy in Chains' to understand why. The conservative billionaire ultra libertarians hiding inside republican rhetoric are forty years into their plan to destroy American democracy and there appears to be little standing in their way.
8
Lovely. David Brooks. I have been fortunate enough in life to live joy. That is not to say that I have not had internal pain from loss, struggles, and rejections in one form or another. But as this essay states so eloquently, it is our vulnerability that eventually awakens the heart and soul to the joy of the love that is constant and standing firmly by our sides whether family, friends, or both. Yes, happiness is fleeting. Think of the times we have celebrated one day and were grieving the next. For those of us who have children, we can remember their emotional roller coasters as they grew to maturity. In fact, we remember our own. It really never ends. Life is always testing us and will continue to do so, that is a certainty. But it’s that love and its companion joy which get us through and tell us that life is worth living.
7
"Anybody speaking to college students these days is aware of how hard it is to be a young adult today, with rising rates of depression, other mental health issues, even suicide."
Yes, Mr. Brooks, it is well documented that suicide rates are rising sharply. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide
People who are suffering from depression and other mental health issues can feign happiness, even joy, as our 28 year old daughter often did before she died by suicide in November, 2018. We knew that joy of seeing our beautiful daughter graduate from college and we shared with her the joy of her accomplishments. In the aftermath of losing her, the best my husband and our two surviving daughters can hope for is moments of reprieve from grief and perhaps a kind of happiness in doing what we can to raise awareness of mental health and suicide issues but joy will not visit us again.
Mental health treatment in the US falls far short of what is needed to save lives. More awareness, better drug, brain and talk therapies are urgently needed.
23
When I read about "these days" and "a cruel time", I always want to add the word, "online" - because what I see is a time when people, in person, are more gracious, more accepting, and more giving than I've ever seen. I really enjoy Brooks' writing and absolutely understand his point regarding happiness and joy, I just think the "times" are better than people like to let on.
When politicians will feel joy in working more for people who elected them than for their reelection?
10
If there’s a distinction between happiness and joy, which I think is very arguable, I’m not convinced that happiness is in some way inferior to joy (or joy “better” than happiness) in human relationships, as Brooks claims. For example, if joy is one’s experience that derives from another’s happiness, apparently with that other’s self, that joy would depend on happiness, ie, one can’t happen without the other. Then, it follows, joy would be the happy about happiness! In fulfilling human relational terms, being “for” the other is surely important. But the “other,” which of two would include both, must still be truly self. It is the perversion of self and individualism that leads to trouble, appearances notwithstanding.
Nonetheless, in the unhappy un-joyful times we live and suffer, this column by Brooks is refreshing. Not necessarily because it provides THE answer, but because it points with emphasis to what being fully human might be in the way life is lived to be life ... rather than the opposite.
2
Thank you, David. Such a sweet moment of deeper tranquility to read these thoughts in that pounding surf of political angst. I have always been a fan and look forward to your columns.
1
Having my first child brought joy I will never forget.
3
"complex and infinite caring" are distinctly mammal, not just human. And, yes biology demands it. Bringing kids to adulthood is a measure of sacrifice and love for parents and herd in mammals generally. The need for species exceptionalism, like American exceptionalism, in many humans, is distinctly human.
2
Neat! Love the Cesar’s Pavese quote - so true. And so true, some will attack the minute they see a hint of vulnerability. If this is/was the essence of your speech, I hope the kids keep a copy of it. Down the line it will mean much more to them. And yes, a friend is much more valuable than a lover.
1
I am so glad to see David move in this direction. Politics is inherently shallow and so focused that it dulls the brain for nuance or examining deeper human issues. Keep it up Dave, I have become a fan.
13
Agree completely. The constant harping on Trump , Mueller , Pelosi and the cast of thousands running for Prez is numbing . Can you honestly say a year from now you will remember any of it? Breakfast with a friend, however....
2
I found that joy in the love of a man.
Great article the living to your fullest with honesty and sincerity and joy and love beats any of today’s religious ideology
1
You will be loved the day when you will be able to show your weakness without the other person using it to assert his strength. And true intimacy is sharing with another person the thing or things that make you weak and not be judged, just be accepted.
6
Goodness. I was taught the difference between happiness and joy in my ninth grade religion class. At an all-girls Catholic school. In the 1980s.
Please open up your Opinion section to other columnists. Preferably female. Preferably people of color. Any of the girls from my class, including the Baptists and the Hindus and the atheists, could have written a column about the difference between happiness and joy.
59
"Lovers stand face to face staring into each other’s eyes. But friends stand side by side, staring at the things they both care about. "
Actually, David, it's the other way around. You may know a ton of people, David, but you are a long way from knowing people. The last thing true friendship is based on is some shared project with the world. (Read Vonnegutt's "false karasses".) True love stands shoulder to shoulder and looks at the world alike; friends face one another and share eyeball to eyeball their battle with the world. Nice of you to try to find nice in this world, which is soaringly laudable, but vainglorious in the extreme. Keep trying though.
3
I guess I’ve attended maybe eight or ten college graduations in my time.
I can’t remember the name of a single one of the speakers or what they talked about.
Moreover, I don’t remember ever listening to them in the first place.
On the other hand, I can tell you a lot about:
-- The first time I ever kissed a girl
-- Willie Mays
-- Johnny Unitas
-- 1967 Ford Mustangs
-- the day when I was twelve and hit a home run on the little baseball field I was playing on,
-- the ten days I spent in 1968 riding across Europe on a train with the woman who I eventually married
-- and the month in 1960 when I finally came to terms with the fact that a big part of the great dream I had for myself when I was a kid wasn’t coming true.
For our current President, forgetting the crimes he has committed falls into the category of throwing junk out of his basement on weekends.
He commits fresh crimes every day.
David, you need to get off of this kick you’ve been on about joy and happiness and fulfillment in our lives and get back to real things.
38
Joy doesn't have to occur only with friends. I have had true joy at times out in the wilderness, solo, when I spontaneously say, " I am alive!" Those words I do not say aloud or spontaneously anywhere else. I have yet to experience this particular joy with anybody else. I can remember exactly where I was, even years later.
20
You could argue that Brooks keeps us sane. Or you could says he's just another part of the distraction/entertainment machine that is ruining America by keeping us from facing the decadence and evil all around us which is destroying this country and leading to something where both happiness and joy will be distant memories. We're on the edge of an absolute fascist abysss, and Americans are just partying on and gong to Little League--exactly as good Germans did in 1933.
7
I am enjoying the George Eliot/Richard Rohr/Brene Brown influences on display in so many of Mr. Brooks's latest columns.
3
As a clergy person leading a parish I sometimes hear people say, “I want to feel joy when I come to church. If I don’t feel joy, I’m moving on.” The church can’t manufacture joy for those who demand it like a commodity. The young people are smarter than we think. They tell me, “We bring joy with us because we come with people we really care about.”
5
It makes me very happy to be in the kitchen preparing a meal. Then I feel great joy in serving it to my friends. Or is it the other way around?
6
Different times, different places. different opinions about the senses of the word "Joy".
In 1785, the German poet Friedrich Schiller wrote a poem:
The title, "An die Freude", the common English translation is "Ode to joy". The poem, in its entirety, is wonderful.
When, more than fifty years ago, I, as a university student of the German language, first read one of the lines, I was jarred by it:
"Freudig, wie ein Held zum siegen."
"Joyful, like a hero to victory."
My reading of the the same line was,"Joyful as a hero who has just killed his opponents in battle."
Images of German military history flew, and still fly, through my mind.
Sometime between 1822 and 1823 Beethoven used Schiller's poem as a text in his 9th Symphony. To add emphasis to the verse referring to the feeling expressed in Schiller's text, Beethoven sets the text to a military march, and to double the military sense of the text, he repeats the line.
More than fifty years later, I still cannot hear the word "Joy" without thinking of Schiller and Beethoven, and German history.
BTW: The audience reaction to the first performance of the symphony was evidently rapturous, some might even say it was joyful.
2
I've experienced much happiness, in spite of illness, minor tragedy, and death. Joy in struggling to guide my children then grandchildren through the their individual trials and challenges. Many friends are now gone, but I live in contentment with the knowledge that I am loved because I have loved all those who meant so much to me.
"Happiness usually involves a victory for the self". "Joy involves transcendence of self".
Contentment involves an honest assessment of one's self, victories and defeats, and to feel one can love and be loved.
9
Columns such as this cause me to think beyond the happenings in Washington. We are inundated with disturbing bits of information regarding Trump that have the effect to anesthetize us and view the world and others more cynically. Mr. Brooks' not only encourages us to look into ourselves, he gives us permission to do so. While this piece may be viewed as being non-political, I believe in asking us to determine think about what makes us happy and what gives us joy Brooks helps the individual determine for him/herself what is important which may be the ultimate political act. "To thine own self be true..." Thank you David.
2
Joy may even emerge at sad times. Mourning the loss of a loved one does not prevent us from feeling the joy of having known that person and her or his achievements. In a sense, happiness is transitory while joy is permanent. Happiness may fade but joy remains.
6
I find transcending the self to be profoundly joy-destroying. When I mentally leave my bubble for the greater world, thanks to modern media, it is very easy to see all the injustices in the world that I have no power to do anything about. Sure, I can do nice things for my friends and family, but I don't find that very meaningful because they were all going to have perfectly fine lives anyway. Unfortunately, I suspect the reality is that joy means transcending the world, living only in a privileged bubble with you and those close to you, with the rest of the world gone from your mind.
6
@Aoy -
While I feel angst looking at the mad mad mad world, I still feel joy over spending the last 12 years of my working life as a teacher in an underperforming high school. I usually think about two things that still bring me joy. One is about those of my student who went on to a four year university (when I started there that was less than 10% of the graduating class). The second is my students of a class I taught for five years, trying to give underperforming incoming freshmen the study skills to be successful. The first is great to see, but the second, when some of those same “underperforming freshmen” walk across the stage and get their diplomas and then come up to me to thank me for giving them the skills to get that diploma, is mind blowing.
Yes, I came from a privileged early life that allowed me to succeed in college and business, but I believe that I deserve the joy of helping so many students gain success at the start of their adult lives and there is nothing that can take that away from me.
4
@Aoy Just about the perfect distillation of upper-class quasi-liberalism: I've decided I can do nothing at all, so I'll just retreat into my privileged bubble...as opposed to getting on board with any number of social movements, let alone the Sanders campaign, which might, like, actually fix stuff for the un-bubbled.
Why such a rigid wall between the two?
I've felt great joy from a personal achievement. And I've felt great happiness for others achievements. There is no wall.
To believe that joy can only "comes after years..." is to miss those moments of joy in everyday life.
I was happy when I completed the 5 Borough Bike Tour with my son on Sunday. Or was it joy because it was the culmination of 16 years of loving him and riding bikes with him?
Does it even matter?
19
Brooks is a Golden Rule guy. Nothing wrong with that, but it does result in his seeing almost all problems as expressions of self interest versus commitment to the human community. What about the rest of the natural world? I find joy most often when I am totally alone, say, standing in a river at dusk casting a fly over rising fish who most of the time are too smart to bite it. The joy isn’t in the fishing although that is a part of it. It’s in the totality of a time and place and the realization that I am not a very important part of. Joy is surrendering to that idea. Happiness, on the other hand, is the momentary interruption when a fish takes my fly. I think I need both.
14
I sat on my neighbor's deck yesterday. She, another neighbor and me. We spoke about mundane, quotidian things. Then our good natured ribbing brought out gales of laughter. The sun shone warmly upon our faces for the first time this cold, dark, wet spring in New England. I felt an excited wave of charged energy race up my spine and out through the top of my head. The bonds, the connections, the web of life. Here, happiness and joy undulate - particle and wave simultaneously.
20
@Anam Cara's last line is pure poetry.
4
@Anam Cara
How wonderful that you recognized the moment and how beautifully you have articulated it. From my perspective, you were "one with the 'Way' (or the Dao). Catching that feeling makes you one with the universe.
5
Beautifully written. Thanks for sharing your time of joy.
5
Sad to say that joy these days is less found less often than happiness, and even real happiness is rare.
As these hopeful young ASU students lept from one lecture and test to anohther, they likely discovered that their new-found diploma did not contain much happiness. Instead, it provoked what kind of Sisyphian upward rock-rolling comes next.
Yes, looking for joy in our lives is the right answer. Anthropologist Teilhard de Chardin, S. J. wrote that "Everything that rises must converge." It's clearly not happening at this point in our histories.
de Chardin also wrote that "Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God." in our lives. It makes one wonder if "everything is falling," not rising, given God is now not a part of many lives.
But joy is to be found. As David said, let's put our arms around friends and potential friends, and all look up. The sky's the limit and the joy's limitless.
I don't doubt that while we all hope for the transcendence of joy--"oh, that magic feeling--nowhere to go" as Lennon and McCartney sang--it's still a lot harder to experience that if one doesn't have some base state of happiness most of the time; or, perhaps, that state can be more correctly termed "contentment"--the sense that one has agency to bring about satisfactory resolutions to the problems of daily life.
The Maslowian hierarchy of needs is instructive here; it's a lot easier to be self-actualized, to experience happiness and peak moments of joy, if one has enough of the basics of life to enable that contentment.
And, it's hardly ironic that the above quoted Beatles' lyric is from a song entitled "You Never Give Me Your Money".
4
Let's see, happiness and joy: Trump, Barr and McConnell. How's that?
1
This is David at his best! Do more of these and forget the perspectives you have in the political arena as you’re writings pale in comparison.
Is that you Maynard...is that you?
My generation, born just after WWII, had educators who were devoted to turning us into educated automatons, and with the draft, cannon fodder. We had heroes in those days, but they were people who led us out of the battlefield of insane competition and self negation, to...listening to the grass grow.
"A blaze of joy"?
No, just go to YouTube and watch some George Carlin, especially the ones where he talks how the game is rigged by the big boys at the table...and they aren't you. Soon, "they" will be trying to turn you into cannon fodder as well.
David Brooks is making a living telling the well off that they are well off, that they deserve their golden path, and along the way, he does what he can to ignore the peasants in the weeds.
Magic is illusion, and so is our American dream if we cannot build bridges between the privileged college educated and the suffering homeless.
Hugh
37
@Hugh MassengillI......of course Brooks was one iof the Iraq war cheerleaders...consider all the joy and happiness that created..
9
@Hugh MassengillI There is something so disingenuous about Brooks having been a cheerleader for traditional conservative policies that have resulted in the lack of joy in so many American lives, and then his bemoaning that lack of joy and further, proposing Sunday school bromides as a solution.
He refuses to confront the Republican Party or traditional conservatism and to acknowledge their abject failure. Instead he dreams on, whistling past the graveyard – happy in his smug superiority.
Well, I guess it sells books.
6
Placed in today's political zeitgeist, happiness is a dramatic reversal of the Republican party's support of the Trump presidency, and joy is witnessing Trump being hauled off to jail as the convicted felon that he is.
3
Sounds like how the I used to feel at a Grateful Dead show back in the day...
3
“We live in a cruel time, when people attack you when they see a hint of vulnerability.”
What precisely is Brooks talking about? Is our time more cruel than another time in history? More than the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Holocaust? Or is he talking about a time when individuals are more cruel? Does he mean in personal relationships, in friendships and marriages, or in the public arena? What special knowledge would give birth to so broad a generalization? It’s not the case in my personal experience. Nobody I know, none of my friends or colleagues, is cruel when they see vulnerability. They comfort, not attack. Clearly in Brooks’ world they’re anomalies; what world, exactly, does he inhabit in which cruelty is commonplace? One can’t but wonder: is Brooks writing about himself? Does he feel himself a target of cruelty, attacked when he’s vulnerabie (which I’ve never actually seen on display)? Or if he needs an example of those willfully and viciously cruel to the vulnerable, most of us have noticed a public figure who embodies that behavior every day. That would have been an obvious example of what’s different about our time but Brooks isn’t interested, even while it explains a new river of cruelty in certain quarters of our society. To put it more simply: what the heck is this column about? And why in God’s name is he writing it? Because being paid to be applauded by 35,000 was joyous? Please, somebody, please stop him before he does this again.
2
@ADN
you're attacking his weakness. are you feeling the joy?
1
@ADN.......of course he was one iof the Iraq war cheerleaders...consider all the joy and happiness that created..
1
Man do I miss the old David Brooks. The one who had real insights into how to reform a broken political system, instead of the one who believes it’s his calling to give sermons on the mount of the NYT. The hard-nosed one that wanted to save reason and bipartisan policies instead of the self-appointed philosopher king who spends his days “researching” America (book tours and paid speaking gigs?), dictating polemics and belching bromides about how love and joy will change society. His readers like his political insights, not his pretended to the priesthood. Come back, old Brooks.
4
I feel badly saying this because I've enjoyed many of Brooks' columns over the years, even though I don't share his political views. But he keeps writing these smug, preachy, Sunday school columns about joy, selflessness, connectedness, transcendence, etc. I wish he'd stop or write self-help columns for another paper or magazine. I don't really learn anything new from most of his columns and find it difficult to get through them.
98
@Geoman Well put. Brooks is a dreamer, not a doer.
3
@Geoman
I found this column beautifully written and think that perhaps you might need to be a little more forgiving and open-minded.
Maybe Mr. Brooks has finally changed and moving toward peace in his older years.
He sounds like Wayne Dyer speaking of the shift that people - ideally - make as they get older. He made a fabulous movie called "The Shift" about this very subject.
Eckhart Tolle often says that some people need more suffering in order to begin to live in "the present moment." This is, I believe, the reason for the Trump Presidency.
Donald Trump is causing so much suffering around the world that I think we can expect a flood tide of people shifting there values from Greed to Giving.
If the suffering Trump has caused can take a Republican apologist like David Brooks and turn him into a spiritual (not religious!) guru then the suffering is doing its work.
I just hope the universe does not decide that we need 4 more years of suffering starting in 2020...
1
Brooks is making things up. "Happiness" is derived from a Germanic word; "Joy" from a French/Latin word. English is amazing because it borrowed so many words from other languages.
Happiness and joy are synonyms, with joy implying a more intense form of happiness.
4
In a documentary about Muhammed Ali, comedian Billy Connally said, "Ali didn't create excitement. Any fool can do that. Ali created joy."
1
Sir, how can there be either when you don’t seem to know the difference between a president and a grifter?
11
I loved every bit of this piece. Then I slogged through the long, wordy attempts to explain to Mr. Brooks how he got it all wrong.😬
2
Simply brilliant
2
Compared to joy, happiness is more dependent on circumstances, on how things turned out.
1
David Brooks is a sort of friend. I enjoy his columns immensely.
5
Nice!
1
Only far Right people write about joy when there is little. When they support the very vile people who inspire hate and intolerance.
6
Emotional difficulty can lead to greater emotional depth and individual maturation, a development that can predispose the moments of joy Mr. Brooks describes.
This capacity to more deeply feel is not for the faint-hearted, but makes an enormous difference in the way one can experience life. The best of life is a marriage of head and heart!
It is quite different than the pursuit of money, power or sex!
Joy is a wonderful thing, but happiness lasts.
1
Oh good grief.
David Brooks is so quietly, justifiably appalled by the exposed cruelty of his own Republican Party that he’s become a Preacher for Niceness to Everybody.
No, close friendships are not forged by a bunch of guys who get together once a year to hand out charity from their deep pockets.
And no, not every parent in that stadium was illuminated with joy. Sure, they applauded you, Mr. Brooks, and that made you happy, but that action was obligatory and, in fact, a number of those parents were probably wondering why they couldn’t find their own sons and daughters in the crowd of graduates, even with binoculars, and how they would pay off impending debts
You were facing a mess of individuals. Not a custard of joyous folk.
It’s these sorts of sugary generalizations and oversimplifications about people that lead to cruelty, because those who generalize, and don’t like to be bothered by individual situations, individual stories, make mean laws.
As you know, deep down, Mr. Brooks.
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@Deborah
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Well said.
Billy on.
5
@Deborah Brilliant!
1
Thank you, Deborah. And amen.
Much like the moment of 700 verses before the war on Kurukshetra, better known as the Bhagavadgita, there is apparently plenty of time for David Brooks to wax on, wax off about the nuances of happiness and joy. But the time is near when we will once again need to address the practical realities of human folly and cast a vote to yoke ourselves to more effective action, knowledge, and love. Happiness will be casting the vote for any adult other than Donald Trump for the presidency. Joy will be an America freed from this insipid, dangerous incompetence and bigotry. I look forward to Brooks finding the end of his pedantic wanderings, leaving the real philosophizing to Krishna. Maybe then he can take some responsibility for the Republican debacle that brings us each day closer to civil war.
10
.
To have and to extend a capacity for joy ... is a human triumph.
1
Nice repackaging of CS Lewis. Hope about a little attribution. That paragraph that includes
"The thing the wisest people say about friendship is this: Lovers stand face to face staring into each other’s eyes. But friends stand side by side, staring at the things they both care about. The thing the wisest people say about friendship is this: Lovers stand face to face staring into each other’s eyes. But friends stand side by side, staring at the things they both care about."
is straight out of "The Four Loves."
9
More and more, I'm convinced David Brooks wants to stay above the fray. Many other columnists are engaged with the world. Unlike these columnists, Mr. Brooks had retreated to a mountain top and sends down philosophy.
Yes, Mr. Brooks, this is an age of cruelty and you played your part in its creation.
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@Robert
The goal of life is to find peace and joy. Not just to win the next election. Yes. Donald Trump is pure evil. Yes the Republicans are selling out the country. But we could all use a little more "retreat to the mountain" and a little more "above the fray."
You can drive yourself crazy until 2020 or you can be a happy warrior. Only fight if you can do so without sacrificing your soul.
And you can fight in many ways. Is there any better way to oppose Donald Trump than to ignore him and live a simple life above the fray? I skip the political columns in the Times. We are actually watching the West Wing and pretending that President Bartlett is in the White House!
So I say to you, step back and ignore the news for a while. It will do your soul some good and if a Republican like David Brooks wants to preach kindness I say "more please!"
"A.S.U. is the most innovative university in the world." Mr. Brooks, where is the proof of this statement? It's a lot like Donald Trump declaring that the almost-bare National Mall on his Inauguration Day was the most-attended in our nation's history? Again, where do facts leave off and fantasy begins?
Otherwise, I enjoyed your essay. And as I read it, I asked myself, "Do these Arizona State University graduates realize that this might be the last great moment of their lives?" You know where I'm going with this: the decadent state of our political affairs. Where are the promising jobs? Where can a young person begin a career without being saddled with a career's worth of obligations? Why should a graduate begin to think that he or she can make a difference in a climate in which we daily fight our ugly, nasty civil wars?
Oh, yes; mothers love their children. Fathers drive to soccer games. Friends and relatives gush over the grill while the kids frolic with the dog(s) near the swimming pool? Those, that is, who made it financially and don't have to worry about "doing things to pay the rent."
I'm searching desperately for that national "blaze of joy." You know, the feeling that we're a nation of disparate parts coalescing to form a greater whole, not one piece floating off here, another chunk there, the slow dissolution of the commonality of the human condition. A state of being where comparisons do not apply. Or, as the warden once asked, "Am I being obtuse?"
11
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
Read the latest college rankings in USNews. And then read all the other marvelous stories about the absolutely amazing transformation that ASU has taken, upward and onward, since Dr. Crow came 17 years ago. It's a fabulous school. Makes you want to learn..what with those 5 Nobel Prize winners, those Flinn scholars, Fulbright scholars (195 of them) Hard for some to believe but it's happened and it's just getting better and better. Thank you Michael Crow.
One of your best. Thanks for this.
4
"...my goal was to get them thinking about the future of their emotional lives, which is really going to be at the center of everything..."
...including and especially the future of our planet. (Really??)
Self-seeking "happiness" (based on possession) has led to over consumption and rape of our planets resources.
Mindfulness practice (which can also offer a deep sense of joy either alone or when shared) helps us to identify a) when we have 'enough' b) what it means to live balanced lives and c) to appreciate the miracle in (and value of) other people and our amazing planet.
3
"A.S.U. is the most innovative university in the world."
Huh? Got something to support this assertion?
10
@JBC - In the time it took you to post that you could have googled it. https://asunow.asu.edu/20180909-asu-news-ranked-most-innovative-US-school-fourth-time
1
Didn't the Greeks have something to say about this? Or was that two kinds of love? There's clearly a relationship.
Many equate joy and happiness. At the least, they're subjective with a great overlap in the lexicographical Venn diagram.
2
I take David's point, particularly about remaining vulnerable and open-hearted in an era of such interpersonal cruelty. Relationships can certainly be one source of joy. But an even more profound joy rests in the apprehension of oneself as a tiny component in the cosmic ecosystem, witness to the miracles of a spider engineering its web, a hermit thrush's haunting notes piercing the stillness at dusk, a bat's seemingly impossible aerobatics. Unfortunately, our navel-gazing species has taken this source of joy for granted, to the extreme that we are destroying not only it but ourselves along as well. This age of cruelty might be ameliorated in no small way if people spent a little less time on their "devices" and contemplated the joy-inspiring magnificence of a single tree.
5
One of David's best columns. The conclusion with the Zadie Smith anecdote and ensuing comment was powerful, cathartic. And this important distinction is what I've only discovered truly in the past five years as a parent. I once observed, admittedly with no scientific basis, that parenthood is equal parts joy and dread. But the joy is in the present and the dread is future-looking, so the joy is the far truer emotion, the dread is a mortgage on your present joy, so you have to work hard to keep it at bay. Well-done on this column.
In a dash before going to the post office, earlier while gift wrapping a true story of Once Upon a Time at La Napoule, a small plaque inscribed 'Joy', fell to the floor. Selfish, but I have decided to keep this.
'The moments of happiness - not the sense of well being, fruition, fulfillment, security or affection, or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination - We had the experience but missed the meaning, and approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form, beyond any meaning we can assign to happiness'.
'I have said before that the the past experience revived in the meaning is not the experience of one life only, but of many generations - not forgetting something that is probably ineffable: The Backward look behind the assurance of recorded history, the backward half-look over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror' - (T.S. Eliot)
Wishing Mr. Brooks, a May Spoon, laced with magic and joy.
Couple of further references:
"Surprised by Joy" by C.S. Lewis. I first read this book 43 years ago, and only recently noticed what he does at the end of the book.
"The Great Good Thing" by Andrew Klavan. On page 185, he writes, "What sort of wisdom has no joy in it? What good is wisdom without joy? By joy I don't mean ceaseless happiness, of course. I don't mean willed stupidity for the sake of a cheap smile. The world is sad and it is suffering. A tragic sense is essential to both realism and compassion. By joy I mean a vital love of life in both sorrow and gladness."
5
Biblically speaking, the difference between happiness and joy is the duration and quality of the two emotions. Happiness is temporary and fleeting, an outward emotion. Joy is an inner happiness not dependent on outward circumstances. Paul lists joy as one of the fruit of the Spirit, along with love, peace, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. James tells us that even in times of trials we should still feel pure joy. Joy comes from knowing that God is in control of everything.
5
Madison Ave. has spent decades trying to convince the world that material possessions bring happiness. Western cultures have raised children in a society where they are led to believe that "they are what they accomplish". We have failed these children miserably.
All those Humanities courses you aren't supposed to take because they are a waste of time are exactly how many of these same children learn that there are things in the world that money can't buy.
113
We are social beings. Most things that we find "good" often are things that promote positive outcomes for many. Many things we label "evil" are detrimental to others with the recognition that ultimately these acts are detrimental to all. Most religions celebrate and cultivate and support acts that are socially mindful with the idea that true sacrifice - giving of ourselves to others irregardless of personal gain or benefit - is the noblest action we can take. Many of us are wired such that we find great joy when we see others thrive, when we know our actions benefited others, when others are free to live and grow as they desire.
Government is a mechanism of society - codifying and guiding our actions and behaviors so that many people can live in peace together. Democracy placed the power of our destiny in our hands believing we would look out for each other better than a small group of people deciding what would be best for us.
The sad thing is there are a group of people who don't care about our joy that will do whatever it takes to be superior. There are people (like our president) who find joy in causing others pain, in denying them things they think are for a special few, who divide us to get what they want. These people often rise to power because they feel the rules of society don't apply to them and don't share the bounty they receive.
To many this minority is now deciding the direction and fate of our nation and teaching joy is for the special few.
12
A child, a very young child, beams with joy without any apparent external rationale. It seems to bubble up from nowhere. We respond with wonder and delight. Joy is innate, like honesty. Like conscience. Happiness is great but requires an external stimulant: realization of some desire; appreciation from someone we admire; relief from pain. But because this response depends upon something outside of ourselves it can neither last nor be reliable, and the tendency is to feel let down when it fades or when the externals are no longer present. Joy does not require anything other than a recognition that we can be joyful. It is a childlike, God-given quality that can be carried forward into adult years if we have the wisdom to acknowledge it as natural to us. We have the ability to cultivate joy. It stays with us no matter what.
3
Very well put. How about contentment?
5
The concepts of happiness and joy in America?
America, sadly, like all of human societies so far over history has no concept of happiness and joy being perpetual projects, that humans are fundamentally dissatisfied creatures which perpetually try to grow, develop, become other than they are, and that to become happy, joyful is essentially to become finished, to end in development.
America, like all human societies so far, and this applies to all the democracies not to mention other societies, throws up leaders who not only represent a quite limited and materialistic conception of happiness and joy (think of everyone from Bill Gates to Jacinda Ardern) but who are quite invested in determining how all the citizens can be made as happy as rapidly and easily and safely as possible, meaning first to establish a ceiling of happiness and joy in society beyond which people cannot pass and then to attempt to lower this ceiling with goods and diversions as much as possible so that people essentially stop, become calm, do not develop beyond a point, are controlled, are good productive citizens (keep the cycle going) and most of all, do not want more.
America and all other advanced societies might not murder people as much as societies of the past did, but it is heavily invested in stopping people by determining what makes them happy, and the enemies of society are those people who just won't become happy not to mention try to grow in unsanctioned ways; they are cancer to society.
2
"Happiness usually involves a victory for the self. Joy tends to involve the transcendence of self. Happiness comes from accomplishments. Joy comes when your heart is in another."
This seems limiting. While I agree that joy is stronger than happiness in terms of transcendence, almost an out of body state of bliss (ideally, while one is sober and clean), to my mind, happiness isn't limited to personal accomplishments.
In other words, I can be happy my friend got a new job, while feeling joy in listening to Rachmaninoff.
The quote from Pavese is the most powerful thing in this column, and perhaps that's David's point:“You will be loved,the day when you will be able to show your weakness without the other person using it to assert his strength.”
For me, the path to happiness lies in building friendships that allow one to feel both vulnerable and safe in the same instant.
As we live through today's culture of predatory selfishness and cynicism, true friends offer protection from the cold "transactionalism" offered by our leaders.
7
Happiness is where we get to. Joy is where we come from.
3
Happiness is found in an object, which, however meaningful, can be lost. Joy is found in a connection with another, which even in grief is never truly broken.
7
Happiest is what David Brooks wrote. Joy is all the comments that followed by his wise readers. Thank you both.
2
What a difficult topic to tackle, happiness versus joy. Entire books have been written on the subject! Four that come to mind are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The unaccountable love, joy, and peace one feels in the presence of one's newborn, and often for the children of others also, that is an echo of the suffusing power of God. Some people feel an actual burning in their chest. Attending to this feeling and cultivating it will lead one in the direction of altruism and love as a habit --will lead one to know God. God knows we need him right now.
4
As someone who teaches a course on philosophies of happiness, I very much welcome the distinction between happiness (self-affirming) and joy (self-transcending). David Brooks might enjoy a book that has just been published this week: "Spacious Joy" by the French philosopher Jean-Louis Chretien and translated into English (Rowman and Littlefield.) It maps out much of the "self-transcendence" that joy brings about through expanding the heart. It includes a chapter on joy in Walt Whitman. We cannot ponder happiness and joy enough!
1
Happiness and joy are both emotions that encompass brief transient moments when we are devoid of: unhappiness dissatisfaction discontent. These are transient in nature unless we learn to develop their everlasting qualities which is innate within us. If our happiness and joy is attached to someone or something we are gonna feel miserable if something bad happens to that thing or someone. How do we stay detached? When we watch the world going by our window we witness untold misery turmoil chaos as things change due to the very impermanence that is in their nature. Do we fall apart witnessing these? Is our happiness and joy so conditional? I will be happy only if you do or say such and such? No. We can’t simply let our happiness be held hostage by situations conditions external to us because we don’t have control over them. But we do have control over our own emotions. Nurturing positive emotions becoming aware of negative emotions, we learn equanimity.
6
@petey tonei I like that term equanimity. I just unfriended a nephew on FB because he was unreasonable. Day after day he presented polemics and would abide no modification of his views. He was the superior being and the rest of us were ignoramuses. I told him his rants were annoying and would he exclude me from them. He said he couldn't do that; I would have to unfriend him. So I did. My equanimity has been restored.
2
Happiness often seems fleeting, impermanent, circumstantial. Joy is lifelong and profound; systemic. IMHO, of course.
2
Nicely presented, a joy to start the day with good thoughts.
10
Bravo Mister Brooks! I am a progressive and this is the second post of yours that I agree with. Joy comes from serving others and no where else. What you've called "happiness", I term "pleasure" which is lesser indeed. Thank you. We have to give away ourselves. We are transients here anyway. That is the saddest part about our corrupt system. People aren't even chasing the good stuff.
6
It is nice to read a commentary about the world falling to pieces. It is a good reminder of the value of fellowship and what it can mean to the greater society as well as our individual souls. People should not over analyze David's writing.
3
Connecting with ourselves and others often helps us to feel happy. Connecting to ourselves and others with an open heart often brings us joy.
5
An excellent piece, Mr. Brooks, required reading for anyone who's ever been or ever will be in doubt about themselves (which means everyone).
Happiness and/or joy are often more enjoyed when exchanged with strangers, people you've never met before and might never meet again.
Funny how that happens!
3
This piece sets me thinking. I have to relate the concepts to religious faiths: there’s a world of difference between believe, know and experience in the monotheistic religions.
Thank you, Mr. Brook
3
Joy in giving.,, if we all moved closer to this concept, there would be both more happiness and more joy in the world, even in dark times and dark places.
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To be "happy" or "joyful" is unarguably a synonymous state of mind, by virtue of hairsplitting emotional feeling and/or dictionary definition. And, if a newly minted college graduate who's facing an uncertain future, weighed down with soul crushing debt, uncertain of finding a full-time job with benefits, can do so with joyfulness, or happiness, then let's hope that for own their sake, and their family's, it's not just a fleeting moment of emoji smiling well-being.
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If ignorance is bliss, than we live in blissful times. Enlightenment is eternal joy, the joy of accomplishment is momentary, much better than the alternative.
5
Lovely piece to read first this morning before the daily news. Thanks!
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Thank you for this amazing quote by Zadie Smith, so powerful it brought tears to my eyes. 'The top of my head flew away'. Oh man.
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"It is more blessed to give than to receive" used to be a dull platitude. It is, however, a cliche precisely because of its well-nigh universal applicability. The Second Mountain should be required reading, especially as we try to restore civility and restoration of American society after Trump.
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David Brooks writes that 'The core point is that happiness is good, but joy is better.' His article makes an excellent emotional and philosophical point, but also a linguistic one. Mr. Brooks's article invokes H. W. Fowler and his book, Modern English Usage. Fowler's entry on 'Love of the Long Word' states:
'The better the writer, the shorter his words’ would be a statement needing many exceptions for individual persons & particular subjects; but for all that it would, & especially about English writers, be broadly true. Those who run to long words are mainly the unskillful & tasteless; they confuse pomposity with dignity, flaccidity with ease, & bulk with force…when a word for the notion wanted exists, some people (1) forget or do not know that word, & make up another from the same stem with an extra suffix or two; or (2) are not satisfied with a mere current word, & resolve to decorate it, also writing with an extra suffix, or (3) have heard and used a longer form that resembles it, & are not aware that this other form is appropriated to another sense.'
Happiness is a three-syllable word; joy, one. The longer the word, the less the vigor, the power. It's why the English were so mad when the Norman French took over, with the decisive Battle of Hastings in 1066. With their conquest, the French brought with them 'complimentary refreshments' - and the English gave up free beer.
Here's to the joy of free beer, and OK, the happiness of a complimentary refreshment.
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@John Gabriel
I like the way English mixes them up. For example, “Bah!” is one syllable, “humbug” is two.
David Brooks is in love, lust or a combination of the two. I am thinking a combination. There is nothing wrong with this. Actually, I think it is wonderful. However, he feels obligated to attribute the song in his heart to a higher purpose. Rather than urging his readers and listeners to find a second mountain, whatever that means, he should be urging them to join him by finding their heart's desire. That goal is real and attainable. Call it joy or call it happiness. I call it something wonderful.
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I think the joy David is describing is the happiness that Aristotle wrote about. Aristotle described happiness as contentment, which has a strong element of joy. On the other hand, what most people think of happiness is merely pleasure, which is fleeting and passes quickly. Contentment and joy are present even when events that cause sadness take place.
10
Joy is spiritual and abiding. Happiness is quotidian and fleeting.
Joy entails a diminution of self. Happiness is attended by an expansiveness of self.
Joy is accompanied by epiphany. James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are pretty good philosophers of joy—certainly Zadie Smith’s equal.
Duty, obligation, and conscience are perhaps better guides to human behavior—especially in our current political and socioeconomic milieu—than the elusive search for happiness and joy. Then, ironically, one can perhaps experience joy.
Emotions proliferate at graduation ceremonies, not just two, including shades of mourning and fear: sadness over the prospect of not seeing friends and teachers again; sadness over losing the protected comforts and habits of student life; anxiety over an unknowable but more demanding future; fear of assuming greater responsibility for oneself and others, whether one is headed to graduate school or a new job; and the happiness of accomplishment, progress, and the prospect of an income.
David, you need to limber up.
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Dear Dr.B;
"it sometimes just combusts within you. A blaze of joy." Also, and this time forggaten ,is the unavoidedly precise time to remember the ones that have emigrated. Regards .
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Mr. Brooks makes short shrift of happiness.
The understanding of happiness and the pursuit of happiness has concerned scholars, theologians and philosophers from ancient until modern times.
Plato connected it to morality and justice.
Aristotle saw it in human flourishing with actions exhibiting virtue. Without virtue, only containment is possible.
Many saw happiness connected to intellectual pursuits.
As for: "Happiness usually involves a victory for the self," that is really not fair to happiness.
Joy springs out of ones soul. Zaide Smith might indeed be describing joy. She does a better job of it than Mr. Brooks.
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@Joshua Schwartz Mea Culpa Maxima: containment should be contentment. Sorry.
2
I have a notion that at the root of US societal problems is the ‘focus’ on happiness. The oft asked “Can money buy happiness” belies the underlying thought ‘money is happiness’.
Life, liberty, and property was the goal or early settlers; then it drifted to ‘life, liberty, and eudiamonia’ [a life well-lived ie in doing good], and today we have ‘life liberty and pursuit of happiness’. Why so much focus on happiness or joy, whatever, when in fact it should be on ‘doing good’ quietly and secretly. Time for Mr Brooks to hang it up.
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....strange. I'm sorry Mr. Brooks but if you have to "put yourself in a situation where you can experience joy" then you've defeated the whole purpose. IF "joy" is feeling great contentment for someone else, it either happens organically or not at all. It's like making yourself fall in love. The harder you try to make it happen, the less likely it becomes. I think Mr. Brooks had good intentions with this article, but he missed the mark.
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Joy comes from knowing to the depth of our being — we are loved. Happiness flows from the precious moments of loving others.
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@Garry
Good. But pretty much the opposite of what the guy wrote.
Happiness is a single with nobody on. Joy is a sacrifice fly and a run batted in.
115
What a fabulous metaphor!
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@Billy
Joy is a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth with two out. Because it is rare.
3
I've got promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
At some point, in my youth, my father told me, "No matter how smart you are, you will always find someone smarter. No matter how good looking you are, you will always find someone better looking. No matter how much wealth you accumulate, you will always find someone with more money. You have to accept who you are."
One evening, late 60's. I a college student wandered into a Brentano's book store in Greenwich Village. I purchased a copy of a book "Demian" by Herman Hesse. From that book, I learned that, "every person's life is a journey unto themselves. "
It helped me understand my goal in life and it helped me be a father. Joy and happiness are important, but perhaps only momentary expressions.
"Plot summary[edit]
Emil Sinclair is a young boy who was raised in a middle class home, amidst what is described as a Scheinwelt, a play on words meaning "world of light" as well as "world of illusion". Sinclair's entire existence can be summarized as a struggle between two worlds: the show world of illusion (related to the Hindu concept of maya) and the real world, the world of spiritual truth. In the course of the novel, Sinclair is caught between good and evil, represented as the light and dark realms. Accompanied and prompted by his mysterious classmate and friend 'Max Demian', he detaches from and revolts against the superficial ideals of the world of appearances and eventually awakens into a realization of self. "
19
Ahh...that jarred a memory. Same experience here.
1
Happiness and joy are ephemeral.
But, when happiness turns to an unhappy feeling, the very being of a person is not altered. However, when joy is lost, a void takes over. Often joy cannot be replaced.
12
Only Brooks can write a dry, academic article about happiness and joy. The pedant said, "my goal was to get them thinking about the future of their emotional lives" while the poet said, "I took the man’s hand. The top of my head flew away. We danced and danced."
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He knows to quote Zadie Smith’s transcendent experience as an example of what he is talking about. I’m glad he passed that little gem on.
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Seems you make some of David’s points beautifully, and perhaps from this level you are also missing the joy he describes.
5
Joy is “the indescribable longing to be part of something beautiful.” It is that ache to be Convergent, or Excellent, or Transcendent that at the best of times we are lucky to experience for a brief moment, but would almost trade a year of our life to feel even for an instant.
The difference between happiness and joy is that happiness quickly turns to sadness when we don’t get the thing we desire, whereas with joy the sweet painfulness of that longing is itself what we desire, even if we never obtain its object.
7
Bob Dylan said something about those brief moments of happiness are pleasurable but fleeting; listening to Van Morrison gives me joy not happiness. Seeing being in Yosemite or the beaches of Oregon or California gives me joy not happiness- major distinctions.
4
Thank you, your article is right on spot, like when you understand the difference between sentiment and emotion or reality and truth. Thank you
2
"The core point is that happiness is good, but joy is better." Happiness is measurable, here, now. Joy is a mental state that even exists in the mentally unstable.
7