With their unique pen and their own sensitivity, artists present their vision of the world to us. This week, we give carte blanche to Émilie Bibeau.
“It’s difficult for her, the joy doesn’t last long and it quickly becomes guilt. In any case, it’s complicated…”
These words from a friend who recently spoke to me about a person dear to him resonated with me for a long time.
It was confronting to realize that I had a simplistic or let’s say limited view of joy and that I simply saw it as a natural, innate emotion, rather than something that may also be difficult or confronting…
This conversation reminded me of this evening last October when I came across the show Everybody talks about it at the time when the fascinating author Kevin Lambert gave an interview shortly after winning the Medici Prize.
Faced with the long list of nominations and prizes with which his latest novel was associated, we asked him at the end of the interview how he felt about this avalanche of appreciation and he replied quite simply: “To quote Louise Dupré, it is an exercise in joy. I’m trying to learn to experience joy. We are not necessarily taught that […] » I admit that this answer both delighted and intrigued me. Delighted because unexpected, intrigued because complex…
What is really our relationship to joy? Can experiencing joy be learned?
Charles Pépin, popular philosopher and optimistic essayist whom I particularly like, affirms in an interview with his publisher at Folio that it is first important to distinguish joy and happiness: “Happiness is a state of lasting serenity, of serene balance . Joy is much crazier, and less lasting: it is a burst. Happiness is incompatible with suffering, violence or the absurdity of the world. Joy remains possible even when happiness is no longer possible. […] every second of joy reminds us that happiness is possible. »
He therefore affirms that happiness can be rare, but not joy, which makes it an undoubtedly salutary element in this vast human journey that we all go through: a walk in the first spring sun which warms the skin and delights us, an aperitif with friends where both the discussions and the chips are delicious, listening to the finale of Succession, a victory for the Canadian when you no longer believed it, a text message that says “I love you”, a phone call from the agency telling you that you have been chosen for a role…
He also refers to the philosopher Henri Bergson, who speaks of joy as a “vital impulse that passes through us”.
A vital impulse that runs through us! I find it frankly magnificent as a definition.
He us explains that climbing ivy is creative in getting around obstacles, that dogs bark to get attention, and that the human being will be just as creative to overcome pitfalls.
But unlike plants and animals, human beings are creative in several ways, which gives, for example, a Van Gogh who paints The starry Nighta Richard Desjardins who sings Do you love mea dancing Pina Bausch The Rite of Spring, etc. And that this vital impulse gives us art, a great source of joy for both the creator and the viewer.
The fact remains that joy must know how to welcome it and therein lies the approach.
We’ve already told you: “Well, let’s see, smile, get some sun, go for a walk and everything will be sorted out! »
Philosophers tend to take issue with this kind of pop psychology which avoids addressing the complexity of life and is ultimately not such good advice, because things are more complicated than: “Put a smile on your face and It’s going to be fine. »
And denying this complexity makes it difficult to connect with joy.
And then, we cannot forever be grateful every second of our life and tell ourselves that joy is necessarily a choice we make.
The question is much more delicate and nuanced.
The preferred solution: advocate a lucid joy where I know that life is toughbut that I choose to dedicate myself entirely to it all the same, because life is beautiful, but also difficult, often arduous and, what do you want, that’s how it is!
We cannot demand or expect life to be perfect for our joy to exist.
In this particularly dark and anxiety-provoking time, filled with turbulence and uncertainty, joy almost becomes a tool of resistance, an essential service in a way…
“Yes, I believe that we must practice joy, for what it is, without waiting for the result and without looking too much elsewhere,” a friend told me when I confided my thoughts to her.
Because yes, looking too much elsewhere will always be a painful trap. Instagram or any other social network teaches us this every day and it is a great obstacle to our joy, because “reality always loses against the ideal”, as Charles Pépin so rightly says.
Instead connect to what is there. Quite simply.
Connect to our tiny daily joys and also to our great collective impulses, without judgment and… without fear.
Like this evening of July 17 on the Plains of Abraham where 90,000 people vibrated with this collective joy, immense, moving, larger than life and greater than all those who had gathered for the historic Cowboys Fringants concert, and who sang with one voice with Karl Tremblay: “ Put your head on my shoulder/So that my love brushes against you […] Tell yourself that this evening, my girlfriend/You are not alone in the world”.
Whether you are a fan of these large gatherings or not, you cannot remain indifferent to this “vital impulse” which passed through more than one that evening…
In short, a reflection and perhaps a possible answer to the enigma of joy: “Consent to life as it is because joy is in reality”, affirms Pépin.
This is my new mantra.
After all, reality is all that life offers us.
Who is Émilie Bibeau?
- Émilie Bibeau is an actress. We could see her notably on television in Unit 9 And Bad weather.
- In 2020, she published the collection of chronicles Vintage heartpublished by Cardinal.
- The web series Vintage hearttaken from his book, has been broadcast on Tou.tv Extra since December 7.
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