The Great Experiment 2.2: Proving or Disproving God by Falsifying Enlightenment

I've concluded that my previous idea about joy was incorrect: doing more activities does not create joy, even if those activities are ones that you like. Joy is a mindset.

To be in joy or not to be in joy, that is the question.

Shakespeare

Joy has synonyms which are happiness, gratitude, hope, and beauty. Finding reasons to be happy, to be grateful, to have hope, and to find beauty in everything, that is a much more concrete and effective way to get into a state of joy than doing things. It isn't to say that you should ignore the bad, that doesn't work either. It's about acknowledging the bad, sitting with it, working through it, and then choosing differently. Healing is a prerequisite of joy, but that healing is a choice just like joy is.

Joy Theory has shown me that our emotional states are incredibly malleable, and incredibly healing. It's also far easier than expected. Joy can be found by incrementally working ourselves through the emotions attached to something and consciously releasing them and choosing a different outlook and emotion. Joy is the final destination of taking back our power and not allowing others to dictate or even influence how we feel. Again, this isn't to be taken to an extreme but if someone purposefully wants you to feel bad, then why play into it? If someone is an angry person, why take it personally? If you are trying your best, why feel bad about it? Joy is the knowledge that you determine how you feel independent of the people around you. It's the final level of self worth.

That being said, it's also a choice. When I created the list of activities I was going to start doing in order to feel joy, I not only meant what I said, but I believed it... and then I did none of them. What that says to me is that I was trying to look outside of myself for joy, but my motivations laid bare my self deceit. Interestingly enough, despite not changing anything about my life at all since that post, I have found joy.

In my favorite podcast, Philosophize This, there is an episode featuring something called the duck rabbit shown below.

Taken from here.

The duck rabbit is a visually ambiguous picture and most people either see a duck or a rabbit, yet both are omnipresent. Once you see both, you are able to train yourself to switch between the two images. Emotions are very similar. Once you realize that your emotional reactions are not fixed, unchangeable states, much like initially seeing the duck or the rabbit, you encounter a freedom of choice hitherto unrealized. Joy is the equivalent of the finding both the duck and the rabbit and then choosing which one you prefer to see.

A common way of describing the choice between optimism and cynicism is the glass half full/ half empty question. "Is the glass half full or half empty?" I think coming at that question from a goal of joy completely redefines how you see it. Instead of just thinking it's one or the other, joy extends beyond it by being grateful that there is any water in the glass at all, because there didn't have to be, a fact that makes any water in the glass a beautiful thing. Shit, even the glass can be seen as beautiful. Looking at the question through a lens of joy transcends both the question and how you feel about it.

What I have done to find joy since my initial post on this branch of my experiment is simply to find joy in what I am doing. Every day I wake up and ask myself, "what would I find joy in doing today?" Some days it's read a book, some days it's sit outside, some days it's listen to music, some hot tubbing, others I find joy in staying in bed all day. The answer is different every day and I refuse to plan my day the day before (barring set plans) because I don't know what will bring me joy until I sit in the present moment and consider it. All of my plans are subject to change. Joy is created through conscious awareness, presentness, and being in tune with yourself. Joy is created by a combination of radical self acceptance and love and acting unquestioningly on what brings you joy in the present. Joy is a conscious act chosen or discarded in each moment. Joy is learned.