06 October 2010

Overflowing Joy.

"...The second glimpse came through Squirrel Nutkin; through it only, though I loved all the Beatrix Potter books. But the rest of them were merely entertaining; it administered the shock, it was a trouble. It troubled me with what I can only describe as the Idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; and, as before, the experience was one of intense desire. And one went back to the book, not to gratify the desire (that was impossible - how can one possess Autumn?) but to reawake it.
And in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, "in another dimension."

...I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them;
the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again."

- C.S. Lewis "Surprised by Joy"

{image found here}

1 comment:

  1. I was just thinking about the difference between happiness and joy the other day. Happiness is usually in a moment and tends to last for a finite time. Joy is knowing you have citizenship and a reserved spot in a Kingdom with the greatest king who loves you more than you can fathom.

    ReplyDelete

Lately.