Personal Interpretation of Joy - Essay Example

The translation also took some improvement as other authors also tackled the complicity of its meaning.

As one author puts it, “joy is a trickier thing to talk about . . . because it is a responsive state or disposition often defined by category of stimulus - there is, for example, spiritual joy, erotic joy, leaving for London joy (Potkay, 2010). “Joys are modifiable in a way that "happiness," a noun without plural, is not (Potkay, 2010).

But regardless of how others define joy, their description can only account for so much of that state or feeling of delightful bliss. The description of that agreeable emotion or that delight of the mind can only say so much of that state when I want to open up to the world out of joy; when everything feels so good that the heavens seem to be bluer and the grass seems to be greener. Joy is a feeling that is very personal to me. Such that it would be very difficult for me to rationalize it for it defeats the very purpose and intent of the word.  Because joy appeals to my emotion; of how I feel, not to what I think. I experience joy, not think about it.

Joy is not only the opposite of grief or dejection.  Nor a transient state of mind that ratifies and approves something amiable. Joy is what life is; how should I live my life. Joy is an expression of that appreciation of the chance that I exist and “enjoy” my existence.

Above all, it is a joy that makes me a complete human being.  It is that experience of joy in my everyday life that affirms my humanity. Perhaps, there are no other creatures that can experience that same bliss and rapture as I do. The beast may satisfy its hunger and be moved by its instinct to procreate, but there is no joy in that. It was moved by the instinct to survive. It is just nature taking its natural course.

But I am moved by motives that go far beyond instinct. I do things because I “enjoy” doing them. I, as a human being, experience joy whether in candlelight or everyday life. That when I experience joy and feel good about a certain experience, it brings out the best in me that makes me better as a person.

There will be no other way for me to live my life than live it with joy.