Essence

“Is there joy in this? There could be, but have they chosen it? You can’t tell by looking.” Thought by Offred in chapter 37 page 235, this topic of thinking is something I think about often. I assume I question other people’s thought processes a lot because of the amount of time I’ve spent with psychiatrists/therapists throughout my life. Thoughts on what causes someone to have feelings about something and someone’s true feelings are common for me to think about. Like Offred, I question the grand unknown of other’s interests and experiences. Is the joy that things grant someone able to truly be understood by others? The way you answer this question depends on how your joys have come to be. There are things that bring joy to multiple people. One of the many examples of this is how many people enjoy a sport like soccer. Although they all feel joy from soccer, the joy that various people feel from soccer is still different from one another due to their individual experiences. These experiences that a human goes through are the deciding factors in what the human enjoys. These experiences are also tied to the development of what a human values. Someone like me who grew up with the lessons of how to treat others correctly is going to have different values than someone who was taught that others have no value. Although people are able to learn more and change their values through more experiences, the base values that someone is taught determine the start of the human’s journey. The empathy that I was taught has helped me go through anger issues and depression by allowing me to understand the value of life. This has allowed me to find joy in helping others but someone with a different start can lead to them finding joy in hurting others. I think that the “joy” someone feels can be forced upon them by being manipulated. Someone close to me was manipulated into moving back to the United States of America and they don’t have the means to leave after finding out they were tricked. They didn’t want to come back here but they were able to find enjoyment while here. Although it might be genuine joy, they were still manipulated into coming back here. This person really affects my life and yet I still can’t tell if their joy was a result of a choice they were willing to make. Having someone close to me who has some of their enjoyments in life as a result of something they were forced to do makes me question if other people’s joy is the result of something similar. This is especially the case for people who find enjoyment in something that I doubt I would find enjoyment in. Do the murderers and people who like Pepsi enjoy what they do because they were forced to? I don’t have the desire to kill people because I have empathy as a result of my experiences. I don’t like Pepsi because my taste buds are correct. Pepsi tastes as if carbonated liquid sugar was rotten. The thought process of deducing the reason people enjoy things and if I can enjoy something is continually affecting me today. I want to try new things that I think could bring me joy but looking at other people’s hobbies can make me concerned if the hobbies are extremely harmful to others. I feel like acknowledging this thought process can help me find more enjoyment in my life but I still worry about people who are forced to find joy in the situations they are forced into. I want people to be able to find true joy in what they seek as long as it doesn’t harm others. I don’t want anyone else to feel like they are restricted due to what situation they were forced into. I don’t want anyone else to feel as though someone close to them isn’t experiencing the joy they truly wish for. My life so far has allowed me to value my experiences. I am including all of my experiences no matter how good or bad I felt at the time. These experiences have still resulted in me being able to experience true joy. Those who have never had this privilege are those who I wish to be able to gain this privilege. I feel that no one else should bear the feeling of not discovering what it truly means to feel joy. I wish for everyone to discover their true essence.