Re-Introduction & Introduction to What is Joy?

Over the past year or so, I have been in somewhat of an artistic hibernation. Perhaps, my teenage angst has finally subsided or maybe just redirected to other things. Nonetheless, I feel my vocabulary slowly slipping away from me as I have not written in quite a while. So in short, I plan to start with a clean slate on this blog (sorry, Xanga of old). I will make it the goal of this blog to be as entertaining and witty (if not more) as I was in my younger years or less sober times.

With that, I want to jump right into a theme that I hope will be prevalent (at least implicitly) in my writings: JOY.

What is Joy, Brian? I usually don't have a good answer for this, which actually makes sense since Joy is better experienced than explained. But since this still doesn't satisfy the curious, I will try my best to explain what Joy is to me.

I believe the main point of Joy is that it occurs as a direct connection between two people. This is a one-to-one, bi-directional, and collaborative connection. Joy manifests itself in a variety of ways, but I will use Art as a starting point since Joy and Art are so closely tied together.

Traditionally, Art has an artist-viewer model in which the artist creates art independently from his or her potential audience. However, with Joy, the artist and viewer are indistinguishable in that they are equally involved in the piece of art. Moreover, the artwork itself is the result of the connection between the two people. In other words, the piece would not exist if there did not exist a connection between the two people involved. In the Joy philosophy, everyone is an artist. This type of art is often more about the action or performance, likely temporary, and performed with the other person in mind.

We've all experienced this in one way or another. It can be as simple as a child drawing a picture for his or her mother for Mother's Day or making personalized gifts for close friends. And beyond art and gifts, Joy can manifest itself in something as simple as a moment or experience. "You are My Joy" is just a way to acknowledge the connection that you feel- that this is no ordinary moment or experience, but one that is in the realm of Joy.