Discovering the pain and beauty of second-hand joy

As the weather gets chilly across Aotearoa, we wanted to warm up D*List readers with some summer-themed content to brace ourselves for the winter months ahead. In this essay, Pieta Bouma writes about experiencing second-hand joy as an observer.

I remember rock climbing once and having a big whinge about how hard it was: “I don’t even know why I think this is fun!” My cousin cheerfully exclaimed, “Oh this is Type Two fun. It’s not fun at the time, but it’s fun when you think about it later!”

According to her, Type One fun is fun at the time and fun to remember. Type Two fun is challenging or scary at the time, but fun to remember. It must be the fond memories and the satisfaction of hindsight that kept me coming back to rock climbing even though I struggled to haul myself up the wall each time. 

After breaking my back and becoming paraplegic, I quickly realised I was going to have to learn about second-hand joy. Like Type Two fun, second-hand joy isn’t experienced directly but with an intermediary step. In the case of Type Two fun: time, and in the case of second-hand joy: another person.

As my heart broke watching my sister run into the ocean with my toddler nephew as I was stuck completely immobile on the sand, I realised my heart would have to stretch and grow to be able to experience the joy someone else is experiencing just by watching it. It was a huge ask for an 18-year-old, to tame the monster of jealousy and silence the thoughts of “that should be me” and to open my heart to the humble and selfless pleasure of watching someone else have fun. 

I think a lot of us spend our whole lives learning to accept two seemingly contradicting truths at once, and some of us never get there. Sitting on the beach and feeling simultaneously heartbroken at my inability to run freely into the ocean and immensely grateful for the fact that I was at the beach with my family in the sun, this ability to feel and know and understand both at once was thrust upon me by whatever twist of fate put this adventurous, sporty girl in a wheelchair.

Joy and contentment whisper where anger and frustration shout - I slowly learnt to listen in and to watch my friends and sisters enjoy the freedom of an able body on the beach and feel their joy with them. This required me removing myself from an imaginary world in which I was also running and dancing on the sand, banning the ideas of what ‘should’ be, was ‘meant to’ be and sitting fully in the reality of what is. 

We can torture ourselves with our ideas of what would have been, if only we hadn’t had that accident, received that diagnosis, made that decision. This idea of what would have been is purely a figment of our own imagination, and one that we compare our own reality to to inflict suffering upon ourselves. If we can only let go of these imaginary worlds that feel so real to us and exist fully present where we are, I think we could all live more grateful and present lives. To look at someone else’s joy and privilege and feel it for them, without your own ego getting in the way and without trying to grasp onto that joy for yourself, is liberation and love. 

My heart has grown since acquiring my disability in a way that sometimes still surprises me. This summer I got one opportunity in a week-long stay at the beach to roll along the sand at low tide and I was so appreciative for this one moment that the joy nearly overflowed and I must have been the happiest person on that beach. When I stand in my standing frame I often feel such joy and gratitude for my one hour standing that I nearly feel sorry for people who can stand every day and think nothing of it. My disability is my greatest mentor in presence, in gratitude and in acceptance. To feel another person’s joy is to access happiness that transcends one’s own physical limitations.

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