I read "Joy on Demand" a while back. Given my personality, I have not been one to demand joy or to construct a path that will always get me to it. But I respect the idea that while the world is replete with sorrow and ill will, it is also filled with sources of joy and wonder and awe, with facts as solid as arithmetic but are about wonderful and joyful aspects of our lives.
I recently took a week workshop about the Old Testament Psalms. The two women who ran it had printed out photos expressing the beauty and wonder of life. One of the photos showed a fetus in the womb and was accompanied by a quote from Psalm 139 "You knit me together in my mother's womb." Melvin Konner in "The Tangled Wing" describes the complex and amazing constructions and trajectories that circuits and connections make as a baby is put together in the womb.
It may be that habituation will gloss over any idea or symbol or picture eventually but for now, the idea of my own construction, a process that takes nine months and lasts 80 or more years is one that grips me. Thinkers, theorists and practitioners often council stepping into the present on a regular basis. They point out that the past, a year ago or a second ago, is not here now, while the future a year hence or a second from now, has not arrived and is only an idea. So, feeling, imbibing the present as it is, right now, can anchor me in a place outside of worry or fear. In a similar way, "habeas corpus", "I must have the body" and I do have a body. These fingers, these back muscles, these bones are a wonder and I salute them with gratitude and appreciation.
