介绍： After my review, I thought, "I know what joy feels like, but what is it, exactly?" And I found that even scientists don't always agree, and they sometimes use the words "joy" and "happiness" and "positivity" more or less interchangeably. But broadly speaking, when psychologists use the word joy, what they mea...

介绍： After my review, I thought, "I know what joy feels like, but what is it, exactly?" And I found that even scientists don't always agree, and they sometimes use the words "joy" and "happiness" and "positivity" more or less interchangeably. But broadly speaking, when psychologists use the word joy, what they mean is an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion -- one that makes us smile and laugh and feel like we want to jump up and down. And this is actually a technical thing. That feeling of wanting to jump up and down is one of the ways that scientists measure joy. It's different than happiness, which measures how good we feel over time. Joy is about feeling good in the moment, right now. And this was interesting to me because as a culture, we are obsessed with the pursuit of happiness, and yet in the process, we kind of overlook joy.
intense /ɪn'tens/ adj. 强烈的，剧烈的
obsess /əb'ses/ adj. 使痴迷；对某事过分担心
在那次评审过后，我在想，“我知道快乐是什么感觉，但快乐到底是什么呢？” 我发现就连科学家也得不出一致的结论，他们有时候会将“快乐”“幸福”和“乐观”这几个词互换着来用。但大体上来说，当心理学家使用快乐这个词的时候，他们所指的是一种强烈却短暂的，乐观的情绪过程，会让我们微笑、大笑，兴奋得想要跳起来。其实这是一种技术性的过程。那种想跳起来的感觉是衡量快乐的一种方式。这跟幸福有所不同，幸福是一种更加长久的感觉。而快乐指的是在那一刻感觉很好，是当下的感觉。这一点让我很感兴趣，因为作为一种文化，我们总是痴迷于追求幸福，然而在这个过程中，我们往往忽略了快乐。

So this got me thinking: Where does joy come from? I started asking everyone I knew, and even people I just met on the street, about the things that brought them joy. On the subway, in a café, on an airplane, it was, "Hi, nice to meet you. What brings you joy?" I felt like a detective.
detective /dɪ'tektɪv/ n. 侦探
这不禁让我思考：快乐到底是从何而来的？我开始询问每一个认识的人，甚至是在街头偶遇的人，是什么让他们感到快乐。在地铁上、咖啡馆里、飞机上， 我开门见山，“嗨，很高兴认识你。什么会让你感到快乐呢？” 我感觉自己像个侦探。

And after a few months of this, I noticed that there were certain things that started to come up again and again and again. They were things like cherry blossoms and bubbles ... swimming pools and tree houses ... hot air balloons and googly eyes -- and ice cream cones, especially the ones with the sprinkles. These things seemed to cut across lines of age and gender and ethnicity. And fireworks -- we don't even need to know what they're for, and we feel like we're celebrating, too. These things aren't joyful for just a few people; they're joyful for nearly everyone. They're universally joyful. And seeing them all together, it gave me this indescribably hopeful feeling. The sharply divided, politically polarized world we live in sometimes has the effect of making our differences feel so vast as to be insurmountable. And yet underneath it all, there's a part of each of us that finds joy in the same things. And though we're often told that these are just passing pleasures, in fact, they're really important, because they remind us of the shared humanity we find in our common experience of the physical world.
几个月之后，我发现有一些特定的事物会一而再，再而三的出现。 比如樱花， 肥皂泡， 游泳池，树屋，热气球，还有大眼睛——还有冰淇淋甜筒，尤其是上面撒了糖豆的那种。这些东西跨越了年龄性别和种族的界限。还有烟火，我们都不需要知道是在庆祝什么，心里也会有喜庆的感觉。这些东西不仅仅会让一部分人感到快乐，它们几乎对所有人都有效，会让所有人开心。看到这些东西在一起出现，让我有一种难以描述的、充满希望的感觉。我们生活在一个分化严重、政治对立的世界，有时候人与人之间的差异如此巨大，巨大到仿佛无法跨越。然而在表象之下，我们还是能在相同的事物中找到快乐.尽管别人经常会告诉我们，这些乐趣转瞬即逝，但实际上，它们还是挺重要的，因为它们能提醒我们，我们有着共同的人性，这来源于我们在探索物质世界时共同的经历。