Sensory happiness

It is said that everyone experiences different things differently through their five (or six) senses. Taste, smell, sight, touch, sound and perception are not just part of our current experiences, however. Instead it’s through these means that we also create our memories. And through these means, we have the incredible ability to have these memories triggered and come flooding back. While driving to work this very morning, that happened. I was listening to a station that plays EDM (electronic dance music) and because this form of expression was the background to some of my most ecstatic and also some of my darkest moments ever, many of those memories and emotions came flooding through me. Not only was I overcome with feelings and thoughts, I also felt immediately compelled to write about the experience.

It’s through the senses of overwhelming bass, the closeness of thousands of virtual strangers in my immediate proximity, the suffocating lack of breathable air, and the sights of hundreds to thousands of faces in the crowd and fantastic lighting was my ‘hobby’ of dancing formed. I remember the very first party I went to like it was yesterday, and yet it was more than 15 years ago. I feel like it’s been a lifetime since that night, and in reality, it has been. I have lost the majority of the people I was once very close to, but the closeness to dancing and music has never left me. In those moments, I have never felt so completely free. I have never been able to step outside myself in such a tangible and intangible way. Besides my other personal love, roller derby, the world has never made more sense.

I’m older now and gatherings have changed immensely, on top of the fact that I kind of like sleeping at night these days, that desire for escaping the world in a fury of bitchin’ dance moves is always something that I’m missing in daily life. It’s in those experiences that I was able to experience happiness though. A perfect, unique joy that can only be brought back via sudden memories, in this case driving to work, and the experiences themselves.

The take away message here: find your joy wherever you can. It is fleeting.