“I often find it easier to be teaching or giving to others, and often struggle with the place of my own pleasure and joy.”
― bell hooks
Not surprisingly, the idea of claiming joy often seems like a distraction from what is truly pressing in life and the issues the world is facing. In moments of stress, anxiety and depression, joy often feels like a selfish or guilty pursuit – precisely because everyone is going through so much. Drawing on our activist mentality, it is infinitely easier to focus on the revolution than to find a place for pleasure and joy. This sentiment is affirmed by bell hooks, “I often find it easier to be teaching or giving to others, and often struggle with the place of my own pleasure and joy.”
The last few years have been particularly tough for most of us. None of us has been left untouched by a world that seems to be burning. At an individual and collective level, the pandemic and the multiple crises in the world have left us reeling, and we are still seeing the effects of this unfolding daily. I have struggled with the loss of both parents as well as multiple losses among family and friends. I have also struggled to maintain my physical and mental wellbeing during this period. At times like these, talking about claiming joy might seem to distract from what is truly important for ourselves and our world.
But, for my own sanity, I’ve realised that a life without joy would feel too bleak – and its absence means that who I am and what I do in this world feels pointless and unrooted. When I stumbled on the notion of “joy is an act of resistance”, I kept wondering what this meant as I tried to frame it in political terms. I started asking myself many questions. Is joy a form of resistance to oppression, or is this just a comforting balm to counter the guilt we feel when we find ourselves feeling good in a world that’s burning? What does it mean to claim joy as an act of freedom and power? How do we actively cultivate joy as part of our political practice?
Understanding joy in the continuum of our activism
As activists, we are primed to take care of others, respond to crises, mobilise, organise and tackle the multiple injustices in our world. This work remains important, and no doubt we will continue to do it. However, we also have to pay attention to joy. Otherwise, we might spiral into despair. And if we are honest with ourselves we’d admit that nothing will get better if we operate from a place of despair.
Finding joy therefore means doing the hard work of shifting our focus as often as possible to appreciate the good that’s happening. It’s how we can gather the energy to do the important work. I believe that connecting to and claiming joy is about keeping the flame and fire of my activism alive because joy is a beautiful generator of hope. It also provides relief from the barrage of demands on our revolutionary energies and actions. We are constantly reminded that our dreams for justice are slow to realise, receiving little recognition from people other than a few co-fighters who are exhausted as well. Burnout is a consequence of this and many of us are on the brink of collapse. Hence, sensory joy is a way to care for ourselves and allow the natural world and our bodies to sustain our struggle.
The deeper political purpose behind evoking joy is also to oppose the broader context of grind culture; the pervasive imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchal ideology that puts pressure on us to constantly produce. Making space for joy can therefore be seen as an act of resistance or subversion that is integral to our change-making efforts. From this perspective, claiming joy is an act of freedom and power, especially in a world where it seems to be available only to a privileged few.
In Pleasure Activism, author Adrienne Maree Brown invokes us to “Recognise that pleasure is a measure of freedom”. The book’s premise is that the states of being that activists strive for – justice, liberation and wellbeing – are highly joyful states. Therefore pleasure can be a powerful tool for helping us achieve them. To be able to choose our joy and experience it is the freedom so many fight for.
Joy as a political strategy
As a political strategy, joy is subversive as it counters common Western narratives of what life is like when rooted in the belief that a world where justice, equity and wellbeing for all is possible. Superficially joy can seem to be an ephemeral yet precious emotion that can be both random and delicate. However, In a world where we are inundated by stories of our powerlessness, claiming joy is an act of power that shows our capacity to access aspects of our experience that defy expectations. Claiming our right to joy enables us to re-vision ourselves in ways that are meaningful and important to us – rather than conforming.
Not surprisingly, joy does not come naturally to many activists. Joy takes practice. We have to learn how to feel light and seek out what the world might have to offer beyond what it presents to us. Choosing joy as practice acknowledges that we have to consciously challenge our internal resistance to claiming joy when it feels like an indulgence, and connect it to the broader action of debunking constructions (sometimes our own) of how we should be in the world.
We already know that building our desired futures is a collective endeavour. Claiming joy politically also has a collective element. Employing joy as a strategy of solidarity provides us with an emotional tool to nurture optimism about the future. Without the collective work of claiming and activating joy, we might be constantly drawn into narratives of bleak futures. Joy as practice helps us to cultivate optimism and confidence that the work we do in the present has a greater significant purpose.
Joy as an integral part of life and activism
Claiming joy reminds us that love, connection and beauty are available in abundance to us all and that we are all worthy of living a full and beautiful life. Joy can connect us by affirming our collective humanity. The kind of joy that is available in our solidarity, in our collective ways of being, is a propulsive force. It gathers and channels energy and disrupts rigidity and control. Audre Lorde sums this idea up clearly in her 1978 essay, The Uses of the Erotic, “In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.” Simply put, joy can be considered resistance because it’s a form of “energy for change”, as Lorde puts it. It counters and contrasts with the rigidity and control of oppressive structures in a non-violent way.
For activists who live with chronic stress and burnout rest itself is vital, but rest alone doesn’t create resilience. We also need moments of release and celebration to mark the small victories and restore body and mind. Sensory joy is a form of care that contrasts with traumatic circumstances and helps cultivate the resilience needed to counter oppression.
Lastly, joy provides a glimpse of a better future that keeps us motivated to work toward it. Clinging to the right to joy can be a profound source of unity, strength and resilience. It is one of our greatest sources of power in our endeavours to transform our unequal world.
Tips for connecting to joy from my activism and life
“We think of joy and activism as separate entities, whereas I’m the kind of person who falls deep into these things… I’ve always had an issue detaching myself from the work, little vacations stress me out… I try to take little breaks to myself… I’ll go on Netflix. I never do work when I’m eating.”
― Sebastián Mendoza-Price
1. Make the connection between our activist politics and joy.
The first step is to recognise that joy is not a luxury or privilege, but that our activist politics is grounded in it. Many of us feel guilty when making time for joy in our lives because we see it as separate. However, making the connection between our activist practice and joy is an important step in claiming it.
2. Take little joy steps.
Take care of yourself in small ways. Go to bed early, cut down on absent-minded phone use, and skip negative news first thing in the morning. Build happiness breaks into your daily life in simple ways like placing stickers on your planner, wearing a colourful scarf, burning an aroma therapy candle, having your favourite snacks close by and facing a window rather than a wall. Fully savour joyful moments — like drinking your morning cup of coffee, inhaling the scent of a flower, taking a moment to listen to birds singing outside your window.
3. Pay attention to your body.
Make time for exercise. A study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that people who worked out for as little as ten minutes per week tended to be more cheerful than those who never exercised. Pay attention to what makes you feel good or energises you. If one form of exercise does not work for you, try another. Some people love running, some prefer yoga, some love dancing and others enjoy walking through a botanical garden.
4. Focus on gratitude.
Create a gratitude or joy list. All of us have things for which we are grateful. Focusing on the things we are grateful for or that bring us joy produces happiness hormones in our bodies, it also teaches our minds to recognise the things that are good for us. Joy is power. Understand that it will not be given freely to us. We have to make the time to create and cultivate it.
5. Create connection and community.
We all yearn for deeper connection and a sense of community. In the world in which we live, it’s easy to become isolated when we focus on work more than on the people we meet or with whom we work. Work with people who care about you. Don’t sign up for a project or movement unless you know the kind of people you’ll be working with. Strike up a conversation with friends, family members and even strangers. Taking a few minutes for conversation, for no other reason than the joy of finding out more about another, can be very revitalising.
Create a community with those who celebrate you and your accomplishments. Make time to share accomplishments and celebrate your friends and co-workers in simple ways like a quick note to say “I see you” or “I am proud of myself and wanted to share it with you” or even forwarding a funny joke or a poem that inspires you.
