Joy as the Friggin' Point

I just watched an excellent series on YouTube called Children of the Stones. Old Brit show for young adults. Ian, the guy who drew the cadceus on my blog introduced it to us tonight. Part of the plot is that some of the people are all happy, too happy, and too smart for their own good.

That was what made them super creepy.

They were happy. And they could do math.

Math!

Friggin' pagan bear cult ley line magus interstellar black hole sun transmission and world domination. And time travel.

Anyway, good show, but it's weird to me that the writers chose intelligence and joy as the symptoms of the people being brainwashed. It's like they're saying, hey, those guys are happy... WTF is their problem? There must be something wrong with happy smart people. No one can be that smart and not be a bitter cynic. No one who can be happy can also do all that ... that ... that math!

When I started processing some of the things I learned in my Work, I found myself ebullient with joy and feeling pretty insightful. I was excited and wanted to tell everyone. I admit it, I had a touch of the old insufferableprickitis. But that's ok. Because this time it was different, I had this understanding of how things worked, I could see how people had trapped themselves in terrible lives by telling themselves convincingly that they had to stay there. I'd done it so well myself.

And what I saw was that it is the same ability to convince yourself that you are stuck that is the power of speaking things into being. The thing Hermeticists learn how to do really well in the Great Work, the operation of making the unseen idea in our head into a manifest reality. It's why aphorisms work, it's the power of New Thought (The Secret) and all the things it teaches that work, sometimes. We are that which can turn things imagined into an experience that we and others can participate in.

But when you do that, you are pretty happy. You're aware of what's going on in your life. You know which currents are currently manifesting, and how they will impact your sphere to bring about your current project. You have a framework that lets you predict outcomes, you have an overarching goal in place, and you've got several experiments running in parallel that are bringing you closer every day. You are satisfied at your progress, excited about your latest discoveries, and already working towards what comes next.

And that, apparently, scares the everloving crap out of people.

Like in The Matrix, the first simulated world was perfect, and no human brain could accept it, and they lost whole crops. So they created an imperfect world, our world, and humans thrived.

We can't accept the idea that people can have good lives, be smart, happy, and content. There's something wrong with those people. Something strange. Something just not right.

That's why I've been on this interview schtick lately. I have proof that I'm not alone, and I'm not crazy. Or a fraud, or a guru, or anything like that. I've got friends who are doing it too, making their lives work, and making it happen.

Charming Glamourists, who doubled their sales from one year to the next, doing what she teaches others to do. Bearded frothing mad Bards telling stories of emergence that grip you by the hypocampus and make you see the timeless moment. .Net programmers doing the whole full-on Abramelin rite on the side that matters, the inside. Professional sorcerors managing their kingdom and providing income by talking about sex, and magic.

They're doing it, they're speaking their worlds into being, creating the situations and experiences they want to participate with. And yes, they are terrified, and thrilled, and angry, and prosperous, and insane, and masters, and total noobs all the time with a sense of wonder that pervades all they do. Sometimes it's wonder in an awed sort of way. Other times they're wondering WTF they're doing with their lives.

But they're all doing it, sometimes they're doing it anyway, all pursuing the manifestation of their reality in accordance with their will. They are doing it. Manifesting branches and fruit of Yggdrasil. By seed and root and stem and bud and leaf and flower and fruit do we invoke Thee, they say, making the unmanifest manifest.

And why?

Because they can't NOT.

They've got to, mister. They can never stop doing this thing because it is what makes them happy. It fulfils us to do this. We ascend the spheres and return in power, and we create the world. We're tweaking our approach, honing our techniques, passing on the things we do for others to see, try on, and keep what works for them as they put together their own magical practice.

The thing that drives them is what I mean when I say Joy. Ecstatic mysteries aside, joy is that feeling of awesome thrill when you've done something cool, and it worked. Sometimes it's even noticed, rarely it may even be appreciated.

Even if it is, though, that's not the point.

We do it because we must. We must feel that joy. Nothing else matters. We all found our way to it, and we do what works for us, because we like it.

And that's the point. I say:

Joy.

It doesn't matter what you create, creation itself is the thing that brings it to you:

Joy.

It's what tells you you've done it right, well done, be proud, and what's next?

Joy.

Existence, the active and interactive experince of existence... is pure joy.