How creating space for joy can build resilience (with Miracle Jones)

How to Be a Better Human

TED

Emotional Awareness, Personal Growth, Chris Duffy, Education, Interviews, Self-help, Better Human, Self-improvement

4.1 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With all the terrible things happening in the world lately, does the idea of maintaining a spark of joy in your day to day feel unrealistic? Or even inappropriate? Today’s guest, Miracle Jones, believes that all the collective tragedy makes the role of joy in our routines even more crucial. She is a community organizer and queer activist who currently serves as the director of policy and advocacy at 1Hood Media. In today’s episode, Miracle meditates on the importance of joy as a catalyst for resilience, growth, and collective action, and shares how we can cultivate its practice even (and perhaps especially) in the darkest of times. You can learn more about Miracle’s work at 1hood.org. To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:05.0	Collective.
0:09.0	You're listening to how to be a better human. I'm your host Chris Duffy.
0:11.0	When I was growing up, my dad worked in the World Trade Center. So that means that he was there for the bombing in 1993 and he just barely missed the last subway to make it into the Twin Towers on September 11th.
0:24.0	I remember in 1993 on the night of the bomb when my dad finally came home he was
0:30.9	standing in the doorway his face was jet black with soot, his suit was covered in ash.
0:36.0	He looked so preposterous standing there, he looked like a kind of overdressed chimney sweep.
0:41.8	And we burst into laughter as we ran in relief to hug him.
0:46.2	Years later, after I graduated college, I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts and I was teaching
0:51.6	fifth grade during the day and a performing comedy at night.
0:55.2	And I was in Boston on the day of the marathon bombings and that night we sheltered in place as we heard
1:00.6	sirens in the street and helicopters overhead.
1:03.0	It's probably the only time I've ever thought that I was doing something brave
1:06.4	by eating an entire pot of spaghetti while sitting on the floor in my underwear.
1:10.0	You know, as a comedian, my first instinct is to want to make jokes about things but when terrible things happen in the world sometimes comedy feels irrelevant or or even inappropriate really how can I go out and make jokes when there's blood on the ground?
1:26.0	Ignoring that kind of naked human suffering, it feels offensive.
1:30.0	To try and make people laugh, it feels wrong.
1:34.3	I'm not sure that words can ever really do justice to the horrors of violence or oppression or a
1:40.7	pandemic. But I do think that one of the most important functions of art
1:46.0	more broadly is to communicate what we can't express otherwise. And the more that I
1:51.3	think about and live through acts of terror and moments of tragedy, the more that I do think that laughter and joy in their wake, they aren't inappropriate. They're actually necessary.
2:02.0	In response to those who would create fear and
	...

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