120 philosophical essays you must read in your life

Chapter 118

Chapter 7, Section 4: On Joy and Sorrow

[Lebanon] Gibran
Your joy is your unmasked sorrow.

The well that springs from your laughter is the same well that has often been filled with your tears.

How could it be otherwise?

The deeper sorrow is etched in your body and mind, the more joy you can hold.

Is not the cup in which you hold your wine, the cup that was burned in the potter's kiln?

Isn't the lute that pleases your mind and sex a piece of wood hollowed out with a knife?

When you are joyful, look into the depths of your heart and you will find that what is giving you joy now is only the thing that made you sad in the first place.

When you are joyful, look into your heart again and you will see that you are actually weeping over that which was your joy.

Some of you say, "The joy is greater than the sorrow." Others say, "No, the sorrow is greater."

However, I want to tell you that joy and sorrow are related and inseparable.

They come together, and when one dines with you alone, remember that the other sleeps soundly in your bed.

There is no doubt that you hang like a scale between your sorrows and your joys.

You are still, balanced only when there is nothing.

When the treasurer lifts you up to weigh his gold and silver, your joys and sorrows must rise and fall.

【Together with you】

When one's joy or sorrow grows bigger, the world becomes smaller.

When joy comes, laugh heartily.

When sorrow falls, she sheds tears.

For fleeting joy brings sorrow, and after sorrow comes joy.

Sometimes joy can only be felt, rarely recorded.Sorrow often makes people longer than thinking.

Joy needs to be shared with others, sorrow can be taken care of by oneself.No one to share the joy is another kind of sorrow.There is a bright spring everywhere, and where the roots of the trees go down, a rose makes the land extraordinarily beautiful.

(End of this chapter)