I read the very first part of that book a long time ago, when I was on a Lewis kick, and have meant to come back and read it for real. I like that he identifies joy with desire - one thing I think is flawed about Buddhism/Schopenhauer/other philosophies of that cast is that they ignore the fact that some of the most enjoyable things we do involve anticipation of future goods, or hoping, or fantasizing, or even bittersweetly dreaming of something we can't have. They go from the observations that suffering is central to human experience, and that desire can often be a cause of suffering, to the conclusion that all desire and all life is suffering. I think Lewis has the right of it - our lives are beautiful and joyous because we have this capacity for intense desire. Some of the moments that come to mind when I think of joy are at Talisman concerts when the music was so beautiful I stopped breathing, and the feeling I associate with that is of an uncontainable desire for something inexplicable - for time not to move, or for the music to somehow infinitely hold the sense of both building up and resolving, or something.
I think we do achieve those feelings of connection and home and community, but never ideally and never permanently; we're built to continue to strive for them no matter how good things are. But I've had times of perfect satisfaction of being connected in - often after a really good, filling meal with a lot of people. (It's amazing how much things like food, and physical warmth, and sleep matter.) Remember going to Ethiopian with Rob and a bunch of people last spring? I know I had a lot of those moments last spring, living in Syn, particularly because we got so much Ethiopian and Indian food with really large crowds of people so many times - this feeling that everything is absolutely perfect and nothing else could possibly be added. But of course it often does happen that even two hours later you can feel lonely and alienated again; we don't hold on to perfection well. I think one of the most important things I've worked on getting a grasp of is that neither one invalidates the other.
Interesting that you mention fantasy and such. I see what you mean - although parts of me refuse to accept that as something unattainable; I've never quite managed to convince myself, outside of the strictly rational argument, that magic doesn't exist. :)
All of the things you want to do sound pretty cool to me - some of them as things I want to do too, and some as things I hadn't thought of but would want to participate in you doing them. (I don't particularly want to play the flute, but if you learned it, you could be in my currently-fictional celtic band!) So, let's do them! That, and I want to get really good at swing and salsa and waltz, and get involved in theatre again, and learn to sew really elaborate things, and get articles and stories published, and learn about old-fashioned sailing ships and get to work on them and sail them and build them, and spend several months in North Africa and Turkey, and...
I think we do achieve those feelings of connection and home and community, but never ideally and never permanently; we're built to continue to strive for them no matter how good things are. But I've had times of perfect satisfaction of being connected in - often after a really good, filling meal with a lot of people. (It's amazing how much things like food, and physical warmth, and sleep matter.) Remember going to Ethiopian with Rob and a bunch of people last spring? I know I had a lot of those moments last spring, living in Syn, particularly because we got so much Ethiopian and Indian food with really large crowds of people so many times - this feeling that everything is absolutely perfect and nothing else could possibly be added. But of course it often does happen that even two hours later you can feel lonely and alienated again; we don't hold on to perfection well. I think one of the most important things I've worked on getting a grasp of is that neither one invalidates the other.
Interesting that you mention fantasy and such. I see what you mean - although parts of me refuse to accept that as something unattainable; I've never quite managed to convince myself, outside of the strictly rational argument, that magic doesn't exist. :)
All of the things you want to do sound pretty cool to me - some of them as things I want to do too, and some as things I hadn't thought of but would want to participate in you doing them. (I don't particularly want to play the flute, but if you learned it, you could be in my currently-fictional celtic band!) So, let's do them! That, and I want to get really good at swing and salsa and waltz, and get involved in theatre again, and learn to sew really elaborate things, and get articles and stories published, and learn about old-fashioned sailing ships and get to work on them and sail them and build them, and spend several months in North Africa and Turkey, and...
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