Plant’s joy and depression
joy
[ joi ]
noun
the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation:
— Dictionary.com
depressed
[ dih-prest ]
adjective
sad and gloomy; dejected; downcast.
pressed down, or situated lower than the general surface.
— Dictionary.com
Happiness, sorrow, joy and depression; all the same?
I am intrigued by happiness or the lack of it. Looking at the definitions, I think exploring joy and depression is more constructive. Happiness and sadness are the effects of particular experiences. In other words, there is a direct cause and effect of being happy or sad. No matter the event, you can almost decide to be happy or sad about it.
Your favourite team won the game, you are satisfied. You can also be sad due to the injury of a player, or perhaps missing the match live. The happiness or sadness feeling is somewhat under your control. Not totally. You can’t force happiness in circumstances that are against your expectations.
Happiness Equals Reality Minus Expectations
by Tom Magliozzi
Joy and depression are in the same lexical area of happiness and sadness. However, these feelings are less under our control. In the same way as money is in our power and the economy is not. Joy is a more spontaneous feeling, and it’s frequently generated by elementary things like the smell of coffee, a bird sitting on the rail or a lovely sunset. These things can also make you happy, but joy is a warm feeling that you can’t explain or find its trigger. I think that the little control we have over joy makes it so powerful. The blissful memories are deeper wired in our brains than the ones of a happy instance.
Depression is a sombre topic, and I don’t want to give the impression I have in-depth knowledge about it. If you are suffering from depression or even just want to know more about the issue, there are specialists dealing with the subject. Talk to them! In this blog post, I wish to explore it as a spontaneous, less controllable feeling that keeps us under the water.
Another critical difference between these classes of feelings is the physical expression of the emotions. A happy or sad person expresses that feeling quite vividly through facial expressions and body language. Although joy and depression can also be visualised in similar gestures, one can be joyful without really showing it and can be depressed with a smile on the face.
How to invite more joy in your life?
Everybody wants to have that warm feeling of pure joy. But if we’re joyful all the time, we would appreciate it less. Like the sunshine on a rainy day, a joyous moment can lighten our mood in an instance.
What creates joy?
The answer to this question depends a lot on our values and principles. If you are a nature lover, a blossomed plant, a squirrel skipping from branch to branch or a lovely song of a bird might trigger the fuzzy warm feeling. If you have other interests, those specific moments will be the sparks for bringing you joy.
There are many moments in a day when we could feel joy. Our minds conspire in deflecting our attention away from these moments. A mind preoccupied with deadlines, tasks at the job, and personal to-dos has no time to stop and enjoy the moments. Being in the present, aware of our surroundings can help us welcome more joy into our lives. But it’s not a no-brainer.
I’m a coffee lover. I enjoy a good coffee as much as the next person. Sometimes, I make one quick coffee as a boost of energy for my work. Although it takes the same amount of time to sip it, I lose that precious instant. My mind is preoccupied with whatever task I am doing and misses the things that make coffee so essential for me. The warmth, the smell, the aroma and taste are lost in the background. I think I taste and enjoy it, but, in fact, I don’t. To be able to find the joy in the coffee, I need to pause my thoughts and direct my attention entirely to the bitter mana.
The coffee example extrapolates to everything, all day long. We are travelling at a rapid pace through our routine without taking the opportunity to observe the joy that gravitates around us. The sunset, the cat rubbing on our legs, the rain on the window or the mixture of ingredients that create a great meal, are all opportunities to be present, joyful.
If somebody asks us what we like, we respond with general topics. Too general. I enjoy cycling, coffee, Belgium beer, reading and writing (not necessarily in this order). We believe that we described a detailed list of preferences. Is it, though? What I really like is the feeling of completing a long ride, biking off the road through forest paths between trees, the sound the wheels are making on gravel, the coasting downhill, and so on. I like to make the coffee starting with grinding the beans and pressing the powder in the portafilter. I enjoy the sound of clicking it in the espresso machine. I like watching the coffee pouring and the colour change from the intense black to the light yellow. I like taking the coffee grounds out and giving the machine a good wipe with the sounds of steam and the water pouring off. I like the smell and the bitter aftertaste that inundates my mouth after a small sip. I like the dynamic of taking the cup up, sipping it and leaving it down while I read a good book.
Why don’t we really express what we like? Doing so would help us find the peculiar things that bring us joy. We would learn to pay attention to them and not let them away unidentified.
A struggling life, poverty or misfortune can hardly make space for moments of happiness, but it still can welcome joy. I don’t want to say that hardship is not a good enough reason for feeling unhappy. Joy is not imprisoned in luxurious homes. Happiness is found in heaven and hell. A prisoner can be joyful for being healthy and having a clear mind to keep him company. Somebody living paycheck to paycheck can still find joy in the work or at home with the family. A homeless person can find bliss on a warm night. Joy is there for us at any moment of the day. We just have to stop the traffic of thoughts and bring our attention to now.
Gratitude is the gateway to a joyful life. We always want more. Once we reach a point that was once a mere desire, we make other wishes and work to achieve them. Material things, status or milestones at work, can motivate us into working harder (or longer). Effectively, selling more of our time for money that can pay for the means to our desires. Not stopping to be grateful for what we have achieved already is a mistake. Being thankful for being alive, healthy, free is enough to feel joy. Being grateful for the things we have, even material ones is another way to welcome joy in our lives.
I have a new bike. After the excitement of the novelty faded, I took it for granted. Like I always had it. The metamorphosis of a desire into a mundane thing kills the imagination. The ‘want’ becomes ‘have’. And then it becomes ‘had’. The past is no place for desires, only the future is. Sometimes I pause and think more deeply about this bike. How lucky I am to have such a good bike, how privileged I am to have such a right area where to ride. How fortunate I am to have everything I need, from the helmet and biking kit to the water bottles and spare tubes. I have infinite reasons to be grateful, just about this bike. I just need to take a moment to infuse myself with gratitude.
Gratitude doesn’t start after passing the threshold of richness or achievements. Gratitude is at all levels. There is a lot of inequality in the world. Some people are simply beginning their life with many barriers in their ways. However, there is always space for being grateful. Even if just for being alive. Being grateful will transform our lives into welcoming joy. These feelings will keep us motivated, not to always get more, but to be appreciative of what we have. We are alive, everything is extra. Time is fleeting, but the time spent in appreciation is time well spent. Gratitude is the tool to create joy and live a good life.
Depression — the opposite of joy?
The entire story published here: https://www.phytosopher.com/blog/plants-joy-and-depression
Phytosophy is an anthology of thought experiments that explore the intrinsic human condition through the lenses of the plants.
Are plants courageous, lazy, or humble? Do they procrastinate, cheat or sacrifice? What lessons can we learn from the nature in order to make our lives more meaningful?
