C.S. Lewis wrote a book with the same title as this post. In a way, it is the inspiration for the post. Lewis’s idea of joy encompassed something more than simple pleasure or happiness. Joy, true joy, is pleasurable, but also comes with an inconsolable longing. His life turned about 180° when he discovered something so good and so high up words failed to fully describe it.
I’m on my fourth or fifth career depending on your numbering system. I’ve had a passion for each. None of those passions has cooled entirely. If I were physically able, I could still be happy being either an aircraft mechanic or a nurse. I would face being a minister with a bit more trepidation. Like their Example, ministers are often crucified by those who once greeted them waving palm branches.
I’ve never given up any of those things. They still live but are expressed in a different fashion—my writing. Flashes of the joy writing brings me showed up long before I began chasing after it. Those stabs of joy could not be driven away. Finally catching up to the joy of writing certainly altered my life in ways that surprised me.
My past lives, with all their highs and lows, were necessary. They made the writer. In turn, the writer’s arrival brought value, fulfillment, and joy to all that went before. What a pleasant surprise.
Jack LaFountain
