Joy (2)

The last time I can recall really feeling joy, I had just successfully implemented a recursive loop, in a new language, using local variables.  I think it might have been when I was teaching JavaScript, and, if so, it was more than twenty years ago.  (Does JavaScript even *have* local variables?)

Yeah, I know.  You have *no* idea what I'm talking about.  Neither did Gloria.  Which kind of took the edge off the joy, because I had nobody to share it with.  Recursion is incredibly hard to get right, since it is not something that comes naturally to the human brain.  When trying to do recursion, we often just settle for some form of iteration.  So doing it correctly, in a new language, gave me a real sense of accomplishment.  It's difficult to explain why.  What I programmed was not, in any way, important.  I was just trying to see if I could do it (and therefore could, legitimately, assign it as a marking requirement for my students).

But there was the "homework" assignment from the grief group about joy.  And the girls are giving me grief about the amount of effort that I'm putting into finding volunteer work, or a church, or things to do in both Delta and Port Alberni.  And they aren't the only ones.  Yesterday a pastor raised the same issue.  He called it "recharge," but, when I mentioned "joy," he agreed that it was the same thing.  (His advice was rather tainted by the fact that, a few times in the conversation, he demonstrated that he wasn't really listening to my attempts to interact with what he was saying, even though he kept saying that he sees me as a friend, and not a job.)

I'm not sure that joy and recharge are, exactly, the same thing.  I'm with C. S. Lewis on joy: in "Surprised By Joy" he points out that joy is incredibly rare, and trying to go looking for it sets you on a fools errand.  You can't go out and get it.  I definitely get the parable about leaving the ninety-nine sheep, finding the one, and calling all your friends to rejoice with you: joy isn't full unless you can share it.  (And I also get the parable about the wedding banquet, and making sure that there is no room for the originally invited guests: *not* being able the share the joy is incredibly annoying.)  It's terrific when it comes, but it comes to you.  I can remember one other time I experienced it.  I was working a completely mundane job, just to pay the rent, and happened to be walking across a weedy gravel parking lot on a sunny day.  I hadn't done anything special, or accomplished anything of any significance.  And I was just suddenly incredibly joyful.  And thanked God for the nice day.  And went on to the next part of my mundane, boring, unimportant job.

So, the homework assignment from the grief group was probably more about recharge than about joy.  But even "recharge" can be really hard to come by, and it doesn't, in my experience, seem to be something you can go and grab: it's something you are given.  Making some possible progress on the grief guys idea (which may be happening) can be a bit of recharge.  Getting my first client volunteer assignment (even in a simple situation) is, a bit.  Getting some Christmas decorations up (which is *completely* unimportant to me, and I am doing *only* as a kind of memorial to Gloria because it was so important to *her*) is, a bit, although running into a box of Gloria's stuff and having to spend *hours* unpacking it definitely drained the charge, so this recharge stuff is definitely subject to failure modes.

Very often "recharge" is going to be very similar to "positive reinforcement," and some kind of "success" (in the "learned helplessness" sense), and therefore accomplishment.  So I hope *something* starts working out, "successfully," soon.