āIt astonishes me sometimesāno, oftenāhow every person I get to knowāeveryone, regardless of everything, by which I mean everythingālives with some profound personal sorrow. Brother addicted. Mother murdered. Dad died in surgery. Rejected by their family. Cancer came back. Evicted. Fetus not okay. Everyone, regardless, always, of everything. Not to mention the existential sorrow we all might be afflicted with, which is that we, and what we love, will soon be annihilated. Which sounds more dramatic than it might. Let me just say dead. Is this, sorrow, of which our impending being no more might be the foundation, the great wilderness? Is sorrow the true wild? And if it isāand if we join themāyour wild to mineāwhatās that? For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation. What if we joined our sorrows, Iām saying. Iām saying: What if that is joy?ā
ā ā The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay


















