Joy

What can you tell me about joy?

Joy is fulfillment, it's taking pride in yourself and enjoying life fully.

I can not speak of my own Joy.

5 years of college. That was the happiest I have ever been. All that learning and exploring. And Geology ... field trips to nature, playing with rocks and dirt. Loved every bit of it. Grounded and content with life in general during that time.

rugadd wrote: What can you tell me about joy?

To me it's like an alignment of some neural circuits or something; where various 'systems' within the body/mind align to create a resonant effect.
Something like happiness might be an excitation of one or another of those systems, but joy is when several or all of them light up together. The resultant effect then includes things like a sense of embodiment, motivation, and things appear as if seen through different eyes.
In contrast we are left with fixation (be is despair (freeze), distraction (flight), or destruction (fight)) or feeding off the energy of others (mimicry).

The morning my daughter was born.

We cannot know true joy without also knowing pain. The latter is necessary to give rise to the former.

For me there is a joy that dwells in the every day spiritual and the every day physical. Mentally, for me , there can be a joy that exist the same way. I've met people who have shared their own joys with me. Some I can partake in on my own, some I can partake alongside others. Some joys I never knew existed till some one told me or I tried for myself. I never thought you could buy a book. If I would be able to write down all the things that bring me joy they would defiantly over lap others. We are not that different when ya think about it.

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/open-discussions/119680-14000-things-to-be-happy-about-plus-one?start=0#303589

Feel free to stop on by if ya like...

I think I can only claim to have known true joy once in my life, though it was also one of my greatest sorrows.

I fell in love once, and I fell hard. She and I hit it off, but it wasn't meant to be, because we met when she was only in town for a few weeks.

She went back home, and that was the end of it. It still hurts, and it's been over 10 years. People have told me to let go, but I'd rather remember her and feel the pain, than forget about her and lose the memory of the joy.