What if joy could be altruistic?

A few years ago, I read the term “anhedonia” and it was one of those light bulb moments that helped put words to my internal experience. Anhedonia references an inability to experience joy, it can also describe a general lack of motivation and drive. According to the book “The molecule of more” all motivation ultimately leads down to dopamine; desire > fulfilment of desire > dopamine. It then makes perfect sense that a person who does not produce dopamine from neither the big nor the small things in life would consequently experience a lack of motivation. So that’s me : never knowing what I want, only what I DON’T want.

However, I refuse to believe anything is set in stone, so I’ve been on a mission to rewire my brain to feel joy. Before I drink my coffee, I stop to smell it, appreciate its warmth. I tell myself I’m lucky to have a nice coffee maker at home, and try to take time to savor my first sip before downing the whole thing, absent-mindedly. So far, the process is always very mechanical. I do the things I think someone who experiences joy would be able to do, but the feeling is still absent, at least for the time being.

On the one hand, I think joy (and awe) requires nervous system safety. Imagine, for example, being presented with a beautiful cake…. while a gun is held to your head. I doubt you’d be able to appreciate the gift. Since I was born in a chaotic and loveless home where felling safe was as real as the tooth fairy, I think for most of my life I simply did not achieve the baseline safety required to experience joy.

However, things are changing. I’m growing, healing, getting more and more regulated. I even, at rare and seldom times, feel relaxed. So I have been wondering, what is it, at this point, that could keep me from experiencing joy? I’ve asked myself this question times and time again, my conclusion, is that I don’t want to be selfish. I see so many people oblivious to their privilege, who let the world burn while they’re partying. I see men balls deep in a girl with daddy issues whom they’re carelessly scarring, zero fucks given as long as they empty their balls. I see parents abandoning their adult children with all the trauma they caused them because it’s easier to move across an ocean to enjoy the beach alone, than to deal with the outcome of their neglect. I see billionaires on their yacht pretending they didn’t make their money on the back of exploited workers. Everywhere I look, people chose joy over doing what’s right, over rebuilding community, over creating a better world. Somewhere along this perspective, in my mind, joy had become a byproduct of selfishness.

Obviously, I know this is not a complete picture. I can imagine myself experiencing joy and still being at my core, someone who cares more about making the world a better place than I care about enjoying it. So how can I bring myself more into balance?

Friday night, Skyler and I attended a rendition of Carmina Burana at La Maison Symphonique. As usual, I used my curiosity to move me, since I can’t motivate myself with dopamine, but something inside of me was saying I should be enjoying this, not merely analysing it. I started feeling very hurt by the void inside of me, wishing I was different – which of course, I know never leads anywhere – when I was reminded of this quote I had seen from an Indian guru. The exact words escape me, but the sentiment was that westerners were too focused on themselves, with their depression and their ailments, always “me, me, me”… and that’s exactly what I was doing. I was sitting in an extraordinary amphitheatre, with an 80 members orchestra accompanied by a 100 people choir. I started thinking about all of the drive, motivation, vision and personal power it took to build this space, the entire year it took Carl Orff to compose Carmina Burana, the countless hours of repeating the musicians did, all for me to sit here and think about my depression; HOW RIDICULOUS! It suddenly occurred to me, that the least I could do, is enjoy it.

Slowly but surely, I started feeling a warmth, like the vibration of the instruments were finally penetrating my shell. By the time O Fortuna closed the Cantata, hairs were standing straight on my arm. Maybe from here on out, I can see joy as a genuine gift of appreciation towards someone’s efforts, maybe even towards my own eventually. It definitely feels like a step forward.