There is a story that my mother likes to share sometimes at family functions.
When I was about seven years old my family visited northern Minnesota to go fishing. Now let me say that my whole family were fishermen back then, except for me. I could not catch anything to save my life. So it was with great joy that on this occasion I caught my first Northern (a form of Pike).
I was overjoyed...so much so that I carried it with me all the way to the fish shack (a screened off shack in which all the fish caught during the day were cleaned.)
While waiting for my dad to get to cleaning my fish, I proceeded to entertain myself by using the Northern Pike as a microphone and doing a impromptu recitation of Bill Cosby's Adam and Eve. So here I was talking for the pike in the voices of Adam and Eve while holding it up to my face when I did the narration. Poor pike, its lips were moving the whole time.
During the part of the routine where Eve is saying to Adam "come here, come here, come here.....no go away, go away, go away" I looked up and the whole campsite was standing outside the fish shack just spellbound. I didn't know what they were staring at. Nothing special going on here. However now thinking about it, I guess a little kid playing hard to get between Adam and Eve using a fish is just something one has to see to believe.
The point?
Children can generate their own joy that isn't dependent on anyone else. It exists because the very act of play is enjoyable. They remind me of those times in my own life where joy wasn't something I sought after; but rather it was a product of the very act of living.
I live therefore I have joy?
Something that I need to live from time to time as an adult.
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