Hello Sunday Readers!
Some of you probably would disagree… but the world seems to have landed on its ear recently.
Considering the political upheaval and judicial support of such upheaval, I find the thought of turning away to defend joy a wise move.
How about you?
A Defense of Joy, by Maria Popova
One of the most important things to have learned in life is that choosing joy in a world rife with reasons for despair is a countercultural act of courage and resistance, choosing it not despite the abounding sorrow we barely survive but because of it, because joy — like music, like love — is one of those entirely unnecessary miracles of consciousness that give meaning to survival with its bright allegiance to the most alive part of us.
“We’ve all had too much sorrow — now is the time for joy,” Nick Cave sings in one of my favorite songs, and yet in a world trembling with fear and cynicism (which is the most cowardly species of fear), joy — the choice of it, the right to it — is in need of constant defense.
I know none mightier or more delightful than the one Mario Benedetti (September 14, 1920–May 17, 2009) mounts in his poem “A Defense of Joy” (…)
A DEFENSE OF JOY
by Mario Benedetti, translated by Maria Popova
Defend joy like a trench
defend it from scandal and routine
from misery and misers
from truancies passing
and permanent
defend joy as a principle
defend it from bewilderments and bad dreams
from the neutral and the neutron
from sweet infamies
and grave diagnoses
defend joy like a flag
defend it from lightning and melancholy
from the fools and the frauds
from rhetoric and ruptures of the heart
from the endemic and the academic
defend joy as a destiny
defend it from fire and firefighters
from suicides and homicides
from vacations and ruts
from the obligation to be joyful
defend joy as a certainty
defend it from rust and smut
from the famous patina of time
from dew and exploitation
by the pimps of laughter
defend joy as a right
defend it from God and winter
from uppercase and the casket
from surnames and the pity
of chance
and of joy too.