Sharing from Substack because this resonated with me and I thought it might help others feel better about feeling happy and experiencing joy when and where they can.
Joy as Resistance
It's okay to feel happiness when the world is on fire
Aug 25, 2025
By Isla Flaherty
In a world where headlines are often heartbreaks packaged for immediate
consumption, where images of humanitarian crises in Gaza, families ripped apart
at immigration hearings, and global conflicts scroll past without pause, our
feeds rarely let us catch our breath. But for a moment, everything seemed to
change. Taylor Swift announced her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl,
and social media exploded. Fans spotted Easter eggs, livestreamed their
reactions to her New Heights podcast appearance, where she sat
next to her boyfriend Travis Kelce, and flooded timelines with excitement and
anticipation. For a few brief hours, Swifties felt joy creep in, and everything
else seemed to stop.
Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift
But was it right to stop? Should we allow ourselves to
forget, even for a moment, all the problems in our country and our world?
Especially for those living with constant fear or loss,
stopping to celebrate, even momentarily, can feel irresponsible. Yet both
history and psychology suggest that joy, even when we are suffering, serves a
crucial purpose: it is a means of survival and, at times, a form of resistance.
The Psychology of Pausing
Positive
psychology, “a branch of psychology focused on the character strengths and
behaviors that allow individuals to build a life of meaning and purpose,” helps
us understand why allowing moments of joy matters. Joyful experiences activate
our brain’s reward system and counteract stress. Over time, they help prevent
emotional burnout, anxiety, and numbness.
The
Big Joy Project, a study led by researchers at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good
Science Center, supports these findings. More than 70,000 participants across
200 countries were asked to practice simple “micro-acts of joy,” such as doing
something kind, making gratitude lists, or celebrating another’s happiness.
Each act was small, but the results were large: participants' overall sense of
well-being, defined as a “composite of their self-rated life satisfaction,
happy feelings, and meaning in life,” jumped 26% in just one week, and positive
emotions, including “hope, optimism, wonder, amazement, amusement, and
silliness,” increased by 23%. In other words, joy isn’t just fleeting, passive
pleasure; it’s a tool of resilience with cumulative benefits, and there are
techniques for creating it.
Yet the question lingers: how can people create joy when
surrounded by suffering? Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of Man’s
Search for Meaning, offers a vital perspective. He observed that even when
life is stripped to its barest essentials, individuals have the freedom to
choose their response. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the
last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of
circumstances.” Frankl illuminates why, across history, individuals and
communities have sought brief moments of happiness even under extreme threat.
It is not escapism, but an assertion of agency, the choice to find meaning and
persevere amid suffering.
Viktor Frankl
The Lesson of The Telly Cycle
Poet Toi Derricotte writes that “joy is an act of
resistance” in her work The Telly Cycle. Derricotte explores this
idea through the lens of a bond with her pet fish.
Born in 1941 in Michigan, Derricotte often grapples with
themes of identity, trauma, and resilience. As a Black woman navigating a
society that frequently questions her worth, she consistently finds meaning in
the intimate and personal.
In The Telly Cycle, Derricotte asks, “Why would
a Black woman need a fish to love?” The question reveals the deep human need
for connection. Choosing happiness, Derricotte suggests, is a radical act of
defiance. The fish becomes a metaphor for a small, sustaining source of joy,
and Derricotte reminds readers that the pursuit of happiness is not frivolous
but necessary, a way to reclaim agency over one’s life.
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