The Joy of the Old Crow Book Club
Not too long ago, I taught a joy-themed writing workshop and many of the writing prompts led me to reflect on my interactions with members of the Old Crow Book Club.
I experience moments of extreme joy talking to and helping the homeless men and women in my neighborhood. I also experience moments of extreme frustration when our efforts to find housing via the Byzantine official system utterly fail and there seemingly is no light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, we can't even find the tunnel.
One of the quotes I wrote on during the workshop, “Things won are done. Joy's soul lies in the doing,” by Shakespeare, prompted the following:
I often remind myself that the doing of something is what brings me greater joy than accomplishing the desired outcome of the doing.
But is that true of my interactions with the homeless people in my neighborhood? I have thought that the ultimate outcome of these interactions is to get one person into housing. One. Perhaps it is not. Perhaps what I offer in humanity to homeless people and what they offer me in their humanity is the greatest collective joy of my practice.
I also must consider something Vaclav Havel wrote that I recently read and ripped out of a magazine: “...hope is the ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed...It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
I just pondered what I wrote in the preceding paragraph. It feels off and contrived. I want my friend Mark off the streets and into housing. That wasn't the goal when I first met him. This goal evolved after becoming his friend and learning his story.
My greatest joy would be to help Mark into housing. I want Mark and I to win this one and have it done. That's where I believe the joy in this scenario lies—not in the doing. The doing in the system relentlessly sucks.