Emerging From Our Common Sorrow

Ross Gay has written a book entitled Inciting Joy. From the first pages, he starts talking about sorrow and our experiences of it, how we hide it and run from it and try to pretend that it doesn’t exist. He focuses on sorrow so much that at one point even he, knowing where he is going, has to stop and reassure the reader. 

If it sounds like I’m advocating for sorrow,  nope. Besides, sorrow (unlike joy, apparently) doesn’t need an advocate . . .But what I am advocating, and adamantly so, is that rather than quarantining ourselves or running from sorrow, rather than warring with sorrow, we lay down our swords and invite sorrow in.

He then proceeds to imagine that we invite others to a gathering where they can “meet” our sorrow. Not just our closest friends. Not just our family or co-workers. Ultimately, anyone and everyone we encounter we find we must invite to the gathering, even individuals we hate. 

He says of the gathering as everyone arrives bringing their potluck dishes: 

 . . . at this potluck no one forgets their sorrows, which they introduce to each other, you can just barely hear it over how loud it is.

In great detail (I hope you want to read the book) he describes how this gathering becomes louder and more raucous and how people gather in small groups telling heir stories with such verve and passion, and then he concludes the description of the scene:

. . . riotous this care, this carrying, this incitement, this joy . . . My hunch is that joy is an ember for or precursor to wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unboundaried solidarity. And that that solidarity might incite further joy. Which might insider further solidarity. . . My hunch is that joy, emerging from our common sorrow–which does not necessarily mean we have the same sorrows, but that we, in common, sorrow–might draw us together. It might depoloarize us and de-atomize us enough that we can consider what, in common, we love. 

I do so very much want to explore this entry into joy at this time in our country. And it is so difficult. But here is the prospect–that I face someone who sees our situation so much differently than I do, and rather than argue my brilliant arguments, I might seek to introduce them to my sorrow and seek to gently care about theirs . . . until we can consider what in common we love. 

~Bob Patrick