Ross Gay on inciting joy while dining with sorrow

It's Been a Minute

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🗓️ 21 February 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

Looking for joy? Then it might be worth exploring your sorrow, complications and mess. In his latest collection of essays, Inciting Joy, poet Ross Gay reconsiders the breadth of joy, arguing that it can be found – and even strengthened – in life's hardest moments, when we must rely on one another. This week, host Brittany Luse sits down with Gay to discuss the complexity of joy, the beauty of grace and creating meaning in life.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, you're listening to It's Been a Minute From NPR.
0:06.8	I'm Brittany Loose.
0:09.5	My guest today is well known for taking delight in the little things.
0:15.4	I've been kind of in the sun a little bit and I've been running into people.
0:20.3	I should tell you, like the sort of incidental bumpings into people is a really fortifying
0:26.6	experience to me.
0:29.4	It's Ross Gaye.
0:31.1	He's a poet and the author of the Book of Delights and more recently, inciting Joy.
0:36.6	According to Ross, we should all take joy a lot more seriously because joy is the
0:42.1	Ember and the Fire behind social movements and survival.
0:47.0	And his definition of joy isn't something that you experience alone.
0:51.1	His joy comes from connection and are interlocking lives or as he puts it, entanglement.
0:57.4	Today on the show, Ross Gaye and I talk about the intricacies of joy and finding delight
1:03.5	in the mess.
1:04.9	After a quick break.
1:15.3	Ross Gaye, welcome to It's Been a Minute.
1:17.5	Thank you.
1:18.5	Good to meet you.
1:19.5	We're so happy to have you.
1:20.5	You know, something I've been wondering a lot about is how you would define Delight
1:25.8	versus Joy or Joy versus Delight.
1:28.7	How would you define each of those feelings and how are they different?
	...

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