{"id":817,"date":"2024-02-13T20:16:32","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T20:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent_dev\/?p=817"},"modified":"2024-02-27T19:42:22","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T19:42:22","slug":"joy-labyrinth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/issue-10\/joy-labyrinth\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy || Labyrinth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Illustration by Omar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like the distinction between happiness and joy. I like joy, like you, because I think joy is an active passion. It\u2019s not a stagnant state of being. It\u2019s not satisfaction with things as they are. It\u2019s part of feeling power\u2019s capacities growing in you and growing in the people around you. It\u2019s a feeling, a passion, that comes from a process of transformation. And it\u2019s a process of growth\u2026 You feel that you have the power to change and you feel yourself changing with what you\u2019re doing, together with other people. It\u2019s not a form of acquiescence to what exists.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Silvia Federici<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biggest achievement of last year? Tearing my Achilles tendon. I showed up to that soccer field on the last 70 degree day of the fall, and I left with a strange sense of pride, a doctor\u2019s appointment in my Google Calendar, a White Claw I was using as an ice-pack, and some crutches a very nice Instacart driver delivered straight to the park bench I was marooned on. For months, Dave had been inviting me to ITP soccer scrimmages, and for months, I gave him excuses. I wanted to go; I did. See, the problem is \u2014 what I want and what my brain wants are often at odds these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year my depression and social anxiety got to some pretty *fun* new levels, and for the first time, I wasn\u2019t allowed to eat grapefruit1<\/sup>. Taking anti-anxiety medication has 1000% helped me, but unfortunately there isn\u2019t a pill that gets me out of my house and to a soccer match full of strangers2<\/sup>. So actually showing up on that fateful November afternoon? Huge win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tearing my Achilles meant that I had actually left my house. Great success, even if accompanied by learning what it sounds like to have a tendon snap and roll up my calf like a retractable projector screen3<\/sup>. I told my therapist that I considered the tear to be a symptom of my anxiety and depression, because if I had been exercising all year as actively as I had wanted to, my frail body would have been able to handle sprinting for 15 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I digress. The point is \u2014 I struggled to exit the prison of my own mind. I finally emerged in a glade of fresh autumn air and park turf, and even though I managed to step in a bear trap, the real cheese at the end of the maze was the friends I made along the way (? \u00bfWhat?). I\u2019m getting lost. Let\u2019s try this again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1  <\/sup>Grapefruit juice has some mysterious collabs with medication, in my case, Lexapro and Klonopin. It \u201cbinds to an enzyme in your intestinal tract known as CYP3A4, which reduces the absorption of certain medications.\u201d

2 <\/sup>Well, there\u2019s Adderall, which I also take, but I\u2019m not trying to rail some addy just so I can go play footy. I save that for my semi-annual durational performance art piece where I pretend I\u2019m a crypto-trading yuppie. And for writing Adjacent articles.<\/small>
3<\/sup> A thwap, surprisingly bass-y<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019ve struggled a lot to write this essay. Turns out \u2014 who knew? \u2014 it\u2019s hard to write about joy when you\u2019re super depressed. This month has been\u2026 very bad. The old voices clutched at me from the whirlpool; Death taunted me from the bank of her cool river; I played 130+ hours of Civilization VI. There\u2019s an image that I have of myself, one that I see when I\u2019m at my lowest lows, where I\u2019m in the middle of a hedge maze, a labyrinth, and no one can find their way to me. The coloring of this image fluctuates \u2014 why would anyone bother trying? People are trying to get in, but I\u2019m watering the hedges; I\u2019m trying to get out, but trauma vines block the paths and my machete is dull4<\/sup> \u2014 but regardless, I\u2019m in there. I understand now that what grows in the labyrinth is shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bren\u00e9 Brown defines shame as \u201cfeeling flawed and unworthy of love, belonging, and connection\u201d. I know that when I go deep enough inside all my thoughts, defense mechanisms, goals, attachment anxiety, all that\u2019s there is a fear that I am unworthy of connection. And I\u2019m unlovable. Who knows why5<\/sup>, but that\u2019s the lot I drew. At least I\u2019m lucky enough to know my core drive (use my art, my work, my life to foster connection, joy, and community) and core fear (I will never find those things myself). When I\u2019m feeling capable enough, I do a morning ritual that includes the mantra, \u201cToday I raze the labyrinth and host a potluck in its garden of ashes\u201d. That\u2019s the dream. A potluck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4<\/sup> and flaccid?

5<\/sup> I do, it\u2019s because I\u2019m a child of divorce that found security by getting really into Jesus as a kid, but then my friend got cancer and died when we were 15, so fuck God, but also RIP that innate, constant sense of connection and worth.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My biggest obstacle is my self \u2014 well, my thoughts, the bureaucratic military wing of my self \u2014 and thoughts are both what gets in my way and what gets me to do the things that are good for Me6<\/sup>. I\u2019ve been trying to boycott my brain the past few years, but trying means thinking and\u2026 I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a Zen koan somewhere about not being able to grasp the fist with its hand7<\/sup>. The only thing in the way of me and other people is my mind. Like Luigi inside the mansion, I am isolated and fighting illusions. The illusions are strong because I have worked hard to make them strong. Thinking gives me a semblance of control. I think because I think that if I can control every outcome, analyze the best path forward, then I won\u2019t get hurt again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, within the individual we find the universal, and I know I\u2019m not alone here. Thought worked for us a while, but things have gotten a little out of hand the past 300,000 years and this tool is starting to act up8<\/sup>. Our glorified, electric meatball brains have gotten too good at manipulating and being manipulated by the true evolutionary-survival MVP, our social groups. If we are to not just survive, but thrive, as a species, then we need to figure out how to make the self-brain play nice with the group-mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re special, but not that special. If we want to understand our brains and social groups a bit better, all we need to do is look at our animal brothers and sisters9<\/sup> and their stupid little meatball brains. To find animals that have brains relatively similar to our own, we needn\u2019t limit ourselves to our nearest ancestors, primates, but can use the handy metric of brain-body mass ratio. More specifically, we can use the encephalization quotient (the ratio of actual brain size to expected brain size based on body size) and its positive association with forebrain neuron count10<\/sup> to find a group of animals that share the distinction of being the most intelligent species in their respective taxonomic groups. It\u2019s a fun club to be in, a real \u201cEarth\u2019s greatest hits\u201d. Besides ourselves, most highly-encephalized animals are those that you think of when you think
\u201csmart lil guy\u201d \u2014 dolphins, octopi, elephants, corvids, mice, chimpanzees, among others11<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that we have some animals that we can look to as our brain-cousins, which evolved social habits and traits should we study to see the best reflection of ourselves? Play? Tool usage? War, sadism, and murder? No, to see how their social neural circuits most closely resemble our own and to get a hint as to how we can harness the evolutionary roots of our social groups, there\u2019s no behavior that\u2019s better to examine than how these animals mourn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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6<\/sup> Note the \u201cme\u201d vs \u201cMe\u201d distinction. Little me is driven by food, sleep, little little me, entertainment, etc. Big Me is driven by connection, passion, fulfillment, purpose.

7<\/sup> \u201cWhat is the sound of one hand fisting?\u201d

8<\/sup> Beesechurger

9<\/sup> And siblings \u2014 shout out to the non-binary animal icon, the capybara.

10<\/sup> Big brain in small body good, more electric meat in the front good.

11<\/sup> No nerd graph is going to change my mind that dogs aren\u2019t on this list. They have no thoughts, their sweet heads are empty, unburdened by the suffering of knowing. Cats, on the other hand, have too many thoughts, and it\u2019s best not to look too closely into what they might be thinking, lest we find out.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Death is what gives our lives meaning, and how we respond to death socially is what defines us as people. Grief is inevitable and universal. It\u2019s the personal experience of loss and how we attempt to adapt to a world without. How we mourn tells us so much about our societal values and hints at why mourning is an adaptation that evolves independently across the animal kingdom12<\/sup>. Mourning is wearing black, it\u2019s showing up with food, it\u2019s wailing and singing and sitting shiva, it\u2019s washing the body, it\u2019s burying and burning and painting with honey, it\u2019s grieving \u2014 together. In highly-encephalized animals, it\u2019s the \u201ctogether\u201d that\u2019s the key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grief in companion animals is so well documented that the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals urges pet owners to not hide deaths from other animals in the house, as cats, dogs, and horses who see the deceased body of an animal they knew can adjust much better and spend less time searching and grieving than pets who have not seen their companion\u2019s remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

African elephants have been known to regularly visit the bones and tusks of their deceased family members. They have been seen gathering around the body of a recently-deceased herd member and gently touching the body with their trunks and feet, often standing vigil for days. Sometimes they will put food in the mouth of the deceased, pack its wounds with mud, and bury it under vegetation. One mother was even observed to stand beside her stillborn baby for three days, seemingly suffering from acute grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bottlenose dolphins are known to have more advanced emotion processing centers in their brains due to the presence of specialized spindle neurons, which, in humans and mice, have been found to be closely associated with adaptive prosocial behaviors. Dolphins have very complex reactions to the death of their pod-mates. One account tells of a mother dolphin whose child died in a sudden attack raising the body of the child up to the surface in an attempt to get it to breathe, repeatedly calling to it, and not separating from it for days13<\/sup>. Another account tells of a pod of dolphins responding to a young calf suffering from severe exposure to pollution \u2014 they appeared stressed, swimming erratically, attempting to help the dying animal stay afloat, but once the child had finally died, they immediately left the area, as if they had prepared themselves by keeping it company and offering whatever support they could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for non-human primates, let\u2019s look at an account of a peaceful death in a chimpanzee family living in a safari park. When the elderly female, Pansy, was near her end, three other adults \u2014 Blossom, Rosie (Pansy\u2019s daughter), and Chippie (Blossom\u2019s son) \u2014 groomed her and nested near her instead of their usual night area platforms. By then she rarely left her nest, which had been made by Blossom, perhaps suggesting care and anticipatory grief. In the ten minutes preceding Pansy\u2019s death, the others groomed or caressed her 11 times (more frequently than normal), although none groomed her after her death. When she died, the others appeared to test for signs of life by closely inspecting her mouth and manipulating her limbs. Shortly thereafter, Chippie attacked Pansy, possibly attempting to rouse or resuscitate her, or perhaps to express anger or frustration14<\/sup>. Pansy\u2019s daughter, Rosie, remained near the corpse throughout the night as if in vigil, while Blossom groomed Chippie for an extraordinary amount of time (suggesting consolation, social support). All three chimpanzees changed posture during the night at abnormally high rates, reflecting disturbed sleep. The next morning, they cleaned Pansy by removing straw from the body, and for five consecutive nights, no chimpanzee nested on the platform where Pansy died, even though this platform had been used extremely frequently before. Finally, for weeks post-death, the survivors remained lethargic, quiet, and ate less than normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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12<\/sup> Like crabs. The only two guarantees in evolution are death and crabs.

13<\/sup> Liek this if you cri evryteim

14<\/sup> Male chimps will literally attack a corpse rather than go to therapy, smh<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why have I spent all this time talking about animal grief when this essay was supposed to be about collective joy? I\u2019ll let poet Ross Gay explain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What happens if joy is not separate from pain? What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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My hunch is that joy is an ember for or precursor to wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unboundaried solidarity. And that that solidarity might incite further joy. Which might incite further solidarity. And on and on. My hunch is that joy, emerging from our common sorrow\u2014which does not necessarily mean we have the same sorrows, but that we, in common, sorrow\u2014might draw us together. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Joy and sorrow are not rivals. They are both pathways out of the labyrinth. Pathways toward other people.<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Joy and sorrow are not rivals. They are both pathways out of the labyrinth. Pathways toward other people. Zadie Smith writes in her essay \u201cJoy\u201d that it is \u201cthat strange admixture of terror, pain, and delight\u201d \u2014 the feeling of genuine joy inexorable from tragedy, the inevitability of loss \u2014 and that mourning \u201churts just as much as it\u2019s worth\u201d. Mourning, and other experiences of collective pain, is sharing<\/em> a tragedy. It\u2019s people steeping themselves in the same boiling pot of misery, but finding some relief in what bubbles up between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have traditions surrounding death across all cultures because of how integral the group processing of grief is to the wellbeing of everyone still alive. But there\u2019s something deeper happening there as well, something about the relationship of the depths of pain and the upper bounds of our pleasure. In the individual, I believe our capacity for gratitude, love, and compassion is directly informed by how we\u2019ve experienced suffering. As Khalil Gibran writes in The Prophet<\/em>, \u201cThe deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter\u2019s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?\u201d I don\u2019t believe everything happens for a reason15<\/sup>, at least not in the way that misguided funeral attendees dribble the platitude16<\/sup>. There\u2019s always a good side to bad things, but sometimes suffering is just suffering. Sorrow is not good because it leads to joy. Sorrow is. Joy is. Yes, yes, it is in the rank and dark compost that the seed bursts into life, whatever.  But maybe there\u2019s something to that, to the idea that this whole miserable crucible we call \u201cwaking up and existing in capitalism\u201d has something playful and good woven into it. Looking up the definition of a labyrinth, I read that the maze of hedges is often \u201cfor the amusement of those who search for a way out\u201d. Could I be in the labyrinth because it\u2019s more *fun*, more interesting than the alternative17<\/sup>? Is this the cosmic deal I signed, like choosing my difficulty level when my soul logged on to this universe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think my personal experience of trying to get out of the labyrinth could be a microcosm of something\u2026 bigger. In the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism, existence is \u201cnon-dual\u201d \u2014 everything is connected and one. Atman<\/em>, the self experiencing reality (\u201cpeople\u201d), and Brahman<\/em>, the infinite, ultimate reality (\u201cGod\u201d) are the same thing. Each individual is merely a facet of the same diamond, reflecting a different light of the universe. In The Book, Alan Watts explores this concept via game:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself\u2026 He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars\u2026 But when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are one single Self\u2014the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Maybe life is<\/em> a game, and joy and sorrow are the mechanics that were designed to remind us who we really are. That we really are We. Maybe humanity has been in the labyrinth for 300,000 years and it\u2019s time we realize what we\u2019re actually stumbling around looking for: how to get out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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15<\/sup>  Unless the reason is entropy

16<\/sup> \u201cGod\u2019s plan?\u201d God needs to stick to the engineering and get a fucking PM.

17<\/sup> In high school we all went to a corn maze and my friend got so drunk he literally got lost and we couldn’t find him and his phone was dead and the maze closed so we left and went to Taco Bell and when we walked in he was sitting there eating a fucking chalupa.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe interactive art has this power. In my game design classes, I stress that a good game is a machine that takes in a person and spits out a different person. The magic circle18<\/sup> of a game or piece of interactive art is so transformative because participant feelings and approaches can trickle out into their actual lives. I went to ITP because I believe when you allow people to change art, the art changes them. It\u2019s agency practice. There\u2019s no one that understands this better than play prophet Bernie DeKoven. He made it his life\u2019s mission to use games as a trojan horse for connection, expression, and shared power. In his posthumous book, The Infinite Playground<\/em>, he talks about two concepts he calls \u201ccoliberation\u201d and \u201cBig WE\u201d. He takes Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi\u2019s concept of flow \u2014 when an individual is in that delicious sweet spot where they\u2019re engaged in an activity that is just challenging enough to be interesting but still easy enough that they don\u2019t get too frustrated \u2014 and asks, what is that like in community? What is communal flow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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18<\/sup>  Magic circles are the ritual framing of an \u201cartificial\u201d experience that allows for participants to engage with different rules than exist in the \u201creal world\u201d.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c[Coliberation is] a shared transcendence of personal limitations, of our understanding of our own capabilities; a sudden, momentary transformation of our awareness of the connections between ourselves, each other, and the world we find each other in\u2026 Coliberation is not the opposite of codependence. Coliberation is why we become that way. Why we seek each other out in the first place\u2026 [It is] when we actually experience ourselves sharing in something bigger than any one who is present. This is what I call the experience of the \u201cBig WE\u201d. It\u2019s a corollary to the \u201cBig ME\u201d experience of self-transcendence\u2026 It\u2019s a collective consciousness of which we may be only dimly aware and yet completely embraced by, identified by and with. And when this WE is so engaged as to form a solidarity, a oneness, and when the will of the one is one with the will of the many, it becomes transformed, and we with it\u2026 Coliberation is what happens when you are fully engaged, yourself, in a community, actual and imagined, that is fully engaged. When you are so much part of the team that you are more fully yourself than you can be alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


I believe this idea of coliberation is the only path to our species\u2019 flourishing in these dark years and those to come. Reflecting on the Silvia Federici quote that started this essay, it is only through radical joy that we can grow in power together, and it is often only through collective pain that we find that solidarity. Otherwise, what\u2019s the point? Of anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is only through radical joy that we can grow in power together, and it is often only through collective pain that we find that solidarity.<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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As with joy and sorrow, Coliberation brings us somewhere by leaning into its opposite. What is it about community that creates the substrate needed for the flourishing of the self, something so defined by and constrained within biology? It can be demoralizing to think too much19<\/sup> about evolution, genes, our brains, why we do the things we do, why we want the things we do. Do I only care about joy because of my trauma? Is my life goal worth less if it\u2019s a defense mechanism? Are any life goals not defense mechanisms? Does anything matter if we\u2019re just these meatball-robots programmed to seek out behaviors that release chemicals in our brains that get us to seek out other behaviors? I\u2019d argue nothing matters \u2014 if you do it in isolation. The only things that matter, that mean anything, are the things we do together. It is only in community or drawing upon others that we find scientific advances, great works of art, activist movements \u2014 the things that actually change the world for the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s tempting to think that the things I want to do for myself are, in fact, what I want. But they\u2019re not. The stuff that matters to the self is just gene survival bullshit20<\/sup>.  I can only be me outside of myself. I\u2019m only my fully realized, final Pok\u00e9mon evolution self when I\u2019m in community. Unlike happiness or pleasure, joy cannot be experienced alone. When I think about the times in my life where I felt pure Joy \u2014  there\u2019s always other people there. There\u2019s always a sense in those moments that I could do anything \u2014 because of the people I was doing it with. It is only within Big We that we become the most fully actualized versions of our individual selves21<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are already many people using these concepts of interconnectedness and looking to nature for the path forward for humanity. adrienne maree brown writes in her book Emergent Strategy<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cEmergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. It is another way of speaking about the connective tissue of all that exists\u2014the way, the Tao, the force, change, God\/dess, life. Birds flocking, cells splitting, fungi whispering underground. Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass, building authentic relationships, listening with all the senses of the body and mind\u2026 Natural selection isn\u2019t individual, but mutual\u2014that species only survive if they learn to be in community\u2026 Emergence shows us that adaptation and evolution depend more on critical, deep, and authentic connections, a thread that can be tugged on for support and resilience. The quality of connection between the nodes in the patterns. Dare I say love. And we know how to connect\u2014we long for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t have to try and get the whole world to experience joy with us. It\u2019s more sustainable and effective to simply try and deepen our relationships to the people around us, deepen our relationships with ourselves. We do that through joy22<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t always want to leave my house and go play soccer. I don\u2019t always want to leave the comfort of the labyrinth. I don\u2019t always want to live. But when I\u2019m in community \u2014 sharing art, sharing food, sharing pain \u2014 I remember. I remember why I live, what it means to live. What I am capable of, and by extension, what we are capable of. I remember how lucky I am to feel so shitty, to have people to feel shitty with. How lucky I am to have bloomed into this fragile meat sack made of stars, how lucky to be on this giant, dying, space rock \u2014 because that\u2019s where everyone else is. And we can do some wild shit together<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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19<\/sup> Full stop

20<\/sup> But shout out to self-care, in which fulfilling the needs of ourselves helps us ensure we have the capacity to do the same for others.

21<\/sup> Hmu if you want to start a cult

22 <\/sup>And food, aka joy made flesh. Hmu if you want to come to the potluck!<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bibliography<\/strong>

Anderson, James R., et al. \u201cPan Thanatology.\u201d Current Biology<\/em>, vol. 20, no. 8, 2010, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.cub.2010.02.010.

Benedetto, Ida C. \u201cPatterns of Transformation: Designing Sex, Death, and Survival in the 21st Century.\u201d https:\/\/patternsoftransformation.com\/vocabulary\/mc-embraced.html.

Bergman, Carla, and Nick Montgomery. Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times.<\/em> AK Press, 2018.

Brown, Bren\u00e9. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.<\/em> Random House Large Print, 2022.

brown, adrienne maree. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds.<\/em> AK Press, 2021.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.<\/em> Harper and Row, 2009.

DeKoven, Bernie, and Holly Gramazio. The Infinite Playground<\/em>. The MIT Press, 2022.

Dudzinski, K. M., et al. \u201cBehavioural Observations of Bottlenose Dolphins towards Two Dead Conspecifics.\u201d<\/em> Aquatic Mammals, vol. 29, no. 1, 2003, pp. 108\u2013116., https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1578\/016754203101023951.

Gay, Ross. Inciting Joy: Essays.<\/em> Algonquin, 2023.

Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet.<\/em> Alfred Knopf, 1923.

\u201cGrapefruit and Medication: A Cautionary Note.\u201d Harvard Health<\/em>, 30 Mar. 2021,      https:\/\/www.health.harvard.edu\/staying-healthy\/grapefruit-and-medication-a-cautionary-note.

Hooper, Rowan. \u201cDolphins Have an Seventh Sense.\u201d New Scientist<\/em>, vol. 211, no. 2823, 2011, p. 15., https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/s0262-4079(11)61816-2.

Lew, C.H., and K. Semendeferi. \u201cEvolutionary Specializations of the Human Limbic System.\u201d Evolution of Nervous Systems, 2017, pp. 277\u2013291., https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/b978-0-12-804042-3.00115-9.

Luhrs, J. August. \u201cThe Origins of Human Reactions to Death: Grief Behavior in Highly Encephalized Animals and the Mortuary Practices of Homo Neanderthalensis.\u201d Outstanding Academic Papers by Students,<\/em> 2017, pp. 146\u2013165.

McComb, Karen, et al. \u201cAfrican Elephants Show High Levels of Interest in the Skulls and Ivory of Their Own Species.\u201d Biology Letters<\/em>, vol. 2, no. 1, 2005, pp. 26\u201328., https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/rsbl.2005.0400.

Pierce, Jessica. \u201cThe Dying Animal.\u201d Journal of Bioethical Inquiry,<\/em> vol. 10, no. 4, 2013, pp. 469\u2013478., https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s11673-013-9480-5.

Smith, Zadie. \u201cJoy.\u201d Feel Free: Essays,<\/em> Penguin Books, London, 2019.
Watts, Alan. The Book on the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are. Souvenir Press, 2012.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n


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  Illustration by Omar Hern\u00e1ndez \u201cI like the distinction between happiness and joy. I like joy, like you, because I think joy is an active passion. It\u2019s not a stagnant state of being. It\u2019s not satisfaction with things as they are. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":859,"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions\/859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/adjacent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}