On the cover: ‘Peru National Award – Milko Torres Ramirez’

Taken from: M. Bizzotto, I valori e il cuore dell’uomo. Un incursione nella vita quotidiana (‘The Values and the Heart of Man. An Incursion into Daily Life’),  Ed. Camilliani.it, 2014, pp.17. Both the printed and the digital versions of this book are available. For greater information click here

Joy is a social feeling to the utmost on the same level as love. It is like the light, it tends to expand, and for this reason it is always looking for a partner, in uniting itself to which it doubles. It is opposed to pleasure that closes man up in himself and makes him an egoist.

When I think of joy I am led to think of that world of beings, objects and events from which it arises. But I think above all else of people who bear joy in their hearts and transmit it to others. There is joy because there are men who are glad. I remember the image with which the gospel describes John the Baptist: ‘He was a burning and shining light, and you were willing for a season to rejoice in his light’. Here we are not only told who John the Baptist is but also what joy is – that feeling that irradiates from the face of a person. It is like the pale and discreet light of a lamp that fends off the shadows and emanates warmth.

Often the soul suffocates in a nightmare of sad forebodings and grave thoughts. It becomes arid and is disgusted at everything. The world then becomes mute and empty, it sends no message; it becomes cold and slides far away. But then a good-humoured person suddenly comes forward whose gaze is directed towards searching for the gaze of other people and suddenly there is light and everything is lit up. A face speaks and, if it is like a lamp that gives out warmth, it says true words that come from the heart and go to the heart. It burns and makes burn, it rejoices and produces joy, it gives without fear of losing something and without seeking to have. Its appearance prepares for the moment that opens the soul and awakens feelings of trust. It is in encounter that joy finds the setting that is most congenial to it…

I wonder: what would joy say if one were to make it speak?

This question allows of only one answer: it would speak words of praise. Those who praise are glad beings. The opposite of joy is not pain, as is often thought. There are people who suffer and yet inside them calm reigns. They have steadfast hearts that do not allow them to be overwhelmed by the commotion of the fray. The opposite of joy is the opposite of praise: invective, sarcasm, contempt, everything that is agitated like acid in a spirit corroded by disgust. Unfortunately, our history is also made up of events that do not allow us to be happy because it is only with difficulty that they allow themselves to be redeemed by joy itself. They steal from us those euphoric moments of jubilation that life every so often gives to us.