It’s good to grab any moment of joy that you can find, even if it’s fleeting, and even it’s while sitting on a packed train on the way to work.
I’m sitting there, listening to the new Hold Steady album, “Stay Positive”, reading Charles Stross’ new book “Saturn’s Children”, and the song “Hey Sapphire” comes on. It ends with the line I quoted above in the title, and I just felt really good. It’s one of those patented Craig Finn positive rock ‘n’ roll moments that really just works.
And I’m reading “Saturn’s Children”, which is a great book again from Stross, and it’s this part where the main character Freya meets a free ex-miner droid named Bilbo, and she’s struck by how mental, yet how friendly and compassionate he is. Outside of Freya, just one of the most hearwarming characters in the book so far.
I get joy nearly all the time at home, and that’s part of the reason while it feels less so as soon as I go to work in the morning. So it feels good to grasp it however I can, no matter how long or short it lasts.
It’s not that I want to make the workday sound like a depressing hellhole either — most of the time it’s just flat. Neither joyously exciting or horribly depressing. That doesn’t impress me a great deal either, but it’s better than the negative alternative.
But it’s good to take the gospel of The Hold Steady whenever I can and… stay positive.