I confess to some hesitation about this quote.
It felt disrespectful to those who are sorrowful.
Truly "we cannot cure the world of sorrows".
But we can share the sorrow of a friend.
(I don't know how to do that without feeling their sorrow.)
I was going to chalk this up to a paradox because, in my typical binary thinking mode,
I believed a person can only feel one emotion at a time. Turns out I'm wrong about that.
"It's common to think that you can only feel one way at a time, but we can actually feel two or more things that conflict or don't match up at the same time. No single feeling is more valid than another – they can all coexist." Rashida Dungarwalla If I was better at feeling my feelings this wouldn't be such a revelation.
After writing this, I happened to run across two more quotes that echo this sentiment.
"in the end, my happiness was my defiance. My joy was my act of dissent." David Joy and
"I think that recognizing joy and play and that kind of full humanity feels like a rebellious act". Ada Limon
When you put happiness and joy in the the garb of resistance to powers that be, and in this case the power is a society with a propensity to over focus on the negative and "shameful"; isn't leaning into them an ideal way to change things deeply and quietly from the inside out?
It can be a revolution!
kastilwell
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