If
happiness is constant absorption, and joy is a moment with bliss, then joy is
the absence of happiness. Because we see happiness as continual, while we see
joy as an interruption of uneasiness. So, to feel joy is an admission that
happiness was absent. When happiness is continual, we do not notice segments of
joy, we only feel and recognize a state of happiness. By saying, “I feel joy,”
is next to saying, before the moment of joy, “I felt some discomfort.”
We are defining happiness as a
constant variable, while we are defining joy as a cousin of happiness. Of
course, we understand that happiness must be continual, if but to claim
happiness. But one might suggest that happiness is not capital but felt in
passing. Or, we might say that joy is happiness, and happiness is joy. This is
with some difficulty, for happiness is a state of being, and joy is a feeling
associated with pleasure. So, with happiness it must exist as something that
cannot disappear, whereas, with joy, it only comes that it might pass.
If happiness is a state of
consciousness, we do not suggest it is without affliction. One may be with
happiness and be sidetracked by a difficult, or even a pain fraught situation. But
the agent in question remains in a state of happiness. With joy, the agent must
be in a state of lowness in order to realize a change has come, which the agent
calls, the visitation of joy. As with happiness, the agent is just
consciousness, despite, those inescapable dents that present themselves; or
better explained, the agent is happiness, where joy is never a realization, for
happiness outweighs joy.
By happiness, we mean unchanged. Joy
is always changed. Where happiness remains unchanged. We do not suggest that
happiness does not fret, or undergo sadness. We more point to a core kernel,
which permits for sadness while remaining happiness. One says, “Happiness
cannot feel sadness.” This position is flawed. Joy is overwhelmed, overpowered
by sadness, where happiness experiences sadness, while remaining trance-fixed
by happiness.
