Anthony Esolen, whose Dante translations I really ought to order today, ponders by the vehicle of the Lord of the Rings films, the yawning modern absence of a ready grasp of joy.
Aristotle refers somewhere to "a kind of motion of the soul, settling, sensible, into its proper nature." That kind of joy.
We here remember, and touch base again with Pinckaers' The Sources of Christian Ethics, Hart's The Beauty of the Infinite, von Balthasar's Aesthetics, and Benedict XVI's direction to look to art, and the phenomenon of the saints: clear deep thinkers who open our eyes to the underpinnings of beauty, longing, and gratitude that support Good&Happy.
Somehow, there is a moral legend afoot that we should pursue the Good merely because we ought, and ask no further. Yes. But In deep fact, we want the Good even as we want -- because they are good -- good food, good company, light and air, a happy home, love with a beautiful mate, the safety of children.
As the comments suggest, enjoying the good rather
than distracting ourselves jerkily with that-defined-as-fun, implies touching bases and driving
tent-pegs that we may have neglected for awhile. Beyond solipsistic
hedonism indulging faux nostalgia for a tribe. Or the complexity-maven who finds torment "more interesting" than fruitful happy simplicity.
Oughts can easily be hi-jacked by tyranny, unlike sincere love and beauty, and healthy hopeful contentment, which are its enemies.
Joy, that's the ticket. To anywhere you'd want to go.
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