MOMENT OF JOY
Written by Ben Tallon
I make a prat of myself every lunchtime. It’s been decades since I had any inhibitions of that kind and I attribute many of the relationships I’ve made through my creativity to that. If it feels good, if it’s funny, or if there’s creative value, I’ll happily sacrifice any perceived cool. Anyway, I make a prat of myself by chasing the dog for his ball. It’s a game, and I have a trick to actually get the ball back after all my tumbling, staggering, and missed lunges. Today I was deep in it, carrying a giant bag of dog food in bright yellow packaging, barrelling after the fleeing hound, when I looked up to see a local friend stood with her pram. As I got closer, I noticed she was smiling at us. I clipped the dog onto his lead and joined her when she said, ‘Oh, don’t mind me, I was just indulging in that little moment of joy. Are you having fun?’ I beamed back, infected by her gleeful expression, realising this wasn’t just a flippant remark. It felt good, and for a brief moment, all the shit we saddle our tired minds with was gone. We held smiles and said no more, and a few late autumn leaves fluttered to the ground to become something new.
On the way home it had me thinking about the beauty in never knowing the influence we can have on others. That’s real power. Not legislation, not bills, not divisive rhetoric. If one of us had been on our phone, reading bleak headlines, that moment would never have happened. But I have it now. It's ours.
On these grey days, when politics and news cycles tear at our skin, keeping us so distressed and down that we feel it’s all hopeless, it’s never as bleak as the bastards would have us believe. How we move, the energy we put out, whether we acknowledge the presence of another person, the shape of our little piece in the humanity puzzle – it all matters. We have the power to lift a spirit, to turn someone’s day, week, year, or life around for the better, and the chances are that if we do, whether we know it or not, they'll do so too. We can be the authors of our lives, and important cameos in many others if we just look up, away from our screens, and climb out of our arses and be.