The speaking tree - An Ode to Joy

JOHN HUMPHRYS





In an age when entertainment is the third-biggest industry in the world, one would think that joy would be fashionable.If only it were. Take a look around and you will see the opposite. Everyone seems to want to express a sort of depressed solemnity . It's not hard to see why . Joy comes unmediated. It is spontaneous.But our society is too sophisticated for its own good, our culture too managed and fabricated. Spontaneity is mistrusted. You get an idea of spontaneous joy watching a small child at play . But I suspect we are all capable of it long after we have reached the age of self-consciousness.Our working hours increase as the stress of our working lives becomes more intense.We make sure we are always on call. If we think about it, we reckon that all this is probably necessary because we can have our larger liberty only if we remain competitive, if we work harder than the next guy who's trying to work harder than us. We compensate by buying distractions. We buy `enjoyment', a tepid version of spontaneous joy , indulge in consumer therapy . We impose on our children our own frenetic regimes. School is not for enjoying, it is for remorseless testing, a permanent preparation for exams rather than a preparation for life with plenty of space for joy . And then we wonder why teachers complain that there is no `joy' left in teaching. Occasionally , we need to defy the empire of necessity ­ if only to prove that we can. It might even help put a smile back on our faces.