A Hundred States of Joy

I. Opening 00:00 II. Undulating Shadows 05:47 III. Streams of Pulses 12:24 IV. The Internal Flame 17:41 V. Quotations of Confabulation 19:15 VI. The Melt 24:50 VII. Eternal Bubbles 31:03 (See the detailed excerpt selections and additional notes on Instagram at @nchin6699.) What is joy, and why must we name it? Perhaps because to know joy is to be reminded that it can exist—regardless of the world’s indifference, regardless of suffering. Its roots run deeper beneath the shifting current of relentless time, unwavering from within. Perhaps because to recognise joy is to recognise a moment of truth, to be aligned with something unshaken, something beyond the noise of the world. It is not an escape, but a return to a quiet certainty. Each person will answer this question differently, for joy’s nature is to elude capture, to reveal itself in fleeting flashes. It lives in the shift of the wind, in the stammer of leaves, in the breath that quickens when a thought strikes you like a stone. A hundred landscapes, a hundred faces, a hundred states of joy—each born in a breath and waned in a heartbeat but may linger for a lifetime, like a song sung once in the cradle and never forgotten. What is joy, and why should we care? Perhaps because it is the flame that does not ask, the fire that burns through all the fog and thorns of the world. It is not tamed by the turn of time, nor buried by the weight of vicissitudes. It is the stubborn green of grass after the storm, the root that holds when all else falls away. Each of us will name it differently, hold it differently, feel it differently—but it is the same wild, unyielding flame. It is joy, and it is ours.