Connections: Pleasure versus Joy, and What it Means to be Entertained

Author and journalist Jennifer Senior was interviewed several years ago on the program Fresh Air (4 February 2014, linked to at right) regarding her book on parenting, All Joy and No Fun. During the interview she elaborated on the concept of joy in parenting, and how it differs in her view from describing parenting as having fun.

One of the remarkable things about joy is that it is sort of predicated on this idea of being very connected to somebody; I think Christopher Hitchens described having kids as 'your heart running around in somebody else's body,' and that feeling is so powerful it's almost scary, because there's almost like an implied sense of loss about it, it's like you love somebody so much that you are almost automatically afraid of losing them, that this connection is so deep that you can't think of that connection without thinking of that connection being broken. So, joy, in some ways, is almost a harder feeling to tolerate than sadness in some ways because it's so powerful and makes us so vulnerable but it's why it is also so profoundly special and what makes parenting to so many of us so huge and incomparable. 

Her description of joy in connection with parenting, particularly her comment that “joy is … predicated on this idea of being very connected to somebody” has echoes in the broader conception of the concept of joy elaborated by physicist David Deutsch in his interview with Sam Harris, on the Making Sense podcast titled Finding Our Way in the Cosmos (#52 released 16 November 2016, linked to at right). In Deutsch’s comments, he distinguishes between joy and pleasure, as well as joy and the idea of being entertained.

For Deutsch – as for Senior in the specific context of parenting – joy is distinct from pleasure (or fun to use Senior’s word) in that it is tied fundamentally to experiences, and in particular continually evolving experiences, that challenge us to engage and think. Deutsch argues that we do ourselves a significant disservice in not understanding this distinction between joy and pleasure, and so in settling for what he considers a superficial understanding of joy.

[DD] Pleasure isn’t joy. People can be trained by our culture and by their circumstances – for instance if they haven’t experienced much joy – to interpret pleasure as joy. But it doesn’t fulfill the same function in the mind, and it’s particularly insidious, because when you first experience [a particular activity] it might well be joy, because then you’re investigating a new experience and a new way of being and new sensations and so on, and that is interesting, and therefore can be joy. But once you’re doing this [particular experience] every day and it’s your way of life, then it gives you nothing. And, if you nevertheless interpret that nothing as being good, then, well, that’s like being dead, you know, it’s not a human state of mind. [55:50] 

In a similar sense, he argues that people tend to have a pernicious misunderstanding of the idea of being entertained. For Deutsch, entertainment is not about some external person or activity or thing entertaining us as passive participants, but instead relates to our personal engagement in what is happening. Again, the fundamental point is the need for our mind to be engaged…

[DD] I think there’s a concept of being entertained by other people, or by things, or by heroin, or by TV programs, or whatever, that is a mistake. We may subjectively feel, we may interpret what’s happening, as the other thing entertaining us, but really the only thing that entertains us is our own creative engagement with it. And, without that creative engagement, nothing can entertain us.


When people get this wrong idea about what entertainment is, that’s the kind of mistake where they think that something mechanical such as heroin, can entertain them. [There are] these clichéd situations where somebody wins the lottery and then is miserable; and I think that the generic trap that one can fall into, in this sort of situation, is by thinking that money can entertain you, not realizing that only you can entertain you. [1:02:15] 

Deutsch later expands on this idea of creative engagement, in response to questions from Harris. He makes clear that he has a broad understanding of the concept of one being creatively engaged, much more general than the typical image of creativity as applying to scientific or artistic pursuits. Particularly striking is his identification of the importance of our relationships in providing opportunities for such engagement, and so for finding joy.

DD: I think the only that actually makes you happy is actually creating.

SH: But, it’s understandable, coming from you [as a physicist], but it seems like a narrow definition of happiness that a scientist and an artist could easily sign on to, but many people who can still register differences in their happiness, changes in their well-being, would not really recognize. So, for instance, what has happened when you’re going along, you’re very happy, you’re as fulfilled as you’ve ever been, but then, your wife dies, or your child dies, and now you’re not as happy, for obvious reasons, but those reasons aren’t best summarized by a sudden lack of creativity on your part.

DD: I think they are. I think that the reason why you’re unhappy is that your previous methods of making progress in thinking were tied to these people who’ve died. And you can’t just instantly replace what you would’ve got from them by something else.

SH: What do you mean by progress?

DD: Well, remember, I’m not snobbish about what kinds of knowledge count as knowledge. All kinds of knowledge, any kind of state of mind which one regards as preferable to another state of mind, can’t be reached without creativity, and reaching it is kind of what happiness is.

So, somebody who isn’t interested in science and isn’t interested in art or any of the things usually regarded as progress or creativity might still be thinking about something; all it takes is for them to be a better person in regard to X, after the thought, than before. And X might be anything, might be something that’s impossible to name, it doesn’t have a name, because it’s not socially valued. But it might be a particular way of interacting with the family. But, they would have to be improving it, would have to, if they think back, they would think, yes, I could have done it better, and now I am doing it better. [1:21:41]

And so, in the realm of parenting, Deutsch’s ideas on the relationship between joy and creative engagement align directly with the thoughts of Senior: it is the involvement with one’s children, watching and helping them learn and grow, dealing with the moments of happiness as well as those of frustration, that brings true joy.