CAUSES AND EVENTS OF JOY

It is the end of the mid-term tests. The school is indulging in usual revelry at this time of the year aftermath the exams. Mikhail has a radiant smile on his face. Students are bustling out of their class. Dave too leaves from one of the classes.

Dave bumps into Mikhail on the stairs. He walks with him until the first storey and then explains, “Mikhail, I am so happy, the pain is over. The exams are history, a thing of the past. It is only joy from here.” Mikhail has a modest joy on his face but it is not one consistent with the joy Dave feels. Dave wonders, “Whats wrong, Mikhail, Aren’t you overjoyed the exams are over?”

And Mikhail says:

Dave, I am happy that exams have come to an end. But my joy is very different from your joy and it is rightly so because of the boys we are, the lives we lead and what it means to both of us. I am joyful at your joy but I apologize, that I am in a little contempt at the joy you seek or that has found you. I do not look down upon your joy but I am hopeful that if I explain my reason for my joy, that you would know that your reason for your joy is not joy but like an exam, only a figment of the life you lead. I would have to be brutally honest; you are my friend, so please allow me to be.

Dave: Yes, Mikhail, Go on, I trust your intentions.

And Mikhail says:

Joy is Cause oriented and Event oriented. The cause of my joy is not the conclusion of exams but myself. I am the cause of my joy and hence my joy is ethereally meaningful. I feel proud of the efforts I put in. I worked diligently towards my goals and respected my studies that being a student is my first obligation and carried it out in all sincerity. My joy is Cause-oriented, the exams are but an event in time which will fade away into history like you said, a thing of the past. My goals and pursuits in life are to cause my own joy and the examination is but an opportunity to realize them.

Dave, you have shared with me the deepest sense of your being. You have told me how you slacked around all semester and got your projects and assignments done from outside. You compromised examination preparation, barely scraped through journal submissions with not a little help from your class mates and friends who filled in either for your absenteeism or your part of the work and role in the group. I apologize I cannot mince words with you

If you admit what I say is true, your joy corresponds to an Event oriented joy. An event has taken place-Exams are over. You have surpassed the event and it brings you joy to think- this has passed too. Seeking joy from events is not innate in the nature of joy to last. This event of exams perishing and you surviving may bring you joy but the memory of these exams may not bring you joy. You will only look back and heave a sigh of relief, Thank God those times are over!

When you seek joy in events without working hard so that you may sow of what you reap, you will only be at the mercy of events, they will come and go. You will thirst again in want of events and when they come you will take refuge until the event has passed but Man will always need joy. His heart will always be restless. In an event, there is struggle and in the end, it may dangerously culminate into glorification of surpassing or being victor at the event in the case of Event oriented joy. There is nothing to feel proud about in it for oneself. It’s just the event but the event goes, the cause stays.