Joy

Two conditions produce joy and both words matter. Connections to primary anima must be available, meaning open and working, and they must be secure, meaning reliable rather than precarious. Availability alone gives a rush and security is what turns it into joy, which is why the emotion is calm rather than agitated in her account. The second sentence is a hard exclusion rather than a generalization. An endoself has blocked or inhibited euphoric conduits and cannot access primary euphoria at all, so no arrangement of circumstances produces joy for one. Excitement remains available, since excitement is only the anticipation of anima and does not require any to arrive, and for an endoself it takes the form of avarice, the desire of possession. The closest thing to joy available is the secondary euphoria obtainable through cruelty and destruction, which is why Marsh describes an endoself as existing in a nearly joyless state. Two consequences follow. The presence of joy is diagnostic of open conduits rather than of good fortune, and its absence is diagnostic of blockage rather than of circumstances. And the industrial arrangement she describes works directly against the security half of the definition, since an industry of critics ensures nobody can enjoy anything without being accused of bad taste, bad politics or impropriety, which is the industrial equivalent of moral police and makes every connection precarious rather than secure.

Positive psychology distinguishes joy from happiness and life satisfaction, and Barbara Fredrickson's broaden and build theory treats positive emotions as expanding a person's resources. Clinical psychology has anhedonia, the loss of capacity for pleasure, as a symptom of depression and of several other conditions. Philosophy has a long treatment of joy, with Spinoza defining it as the passage to greater perfection or power of acting, which is close to Marsh's structure. The unusual element in her account is the categorical exclusion. Anhedonia is a matter of degree in clinical usage, whereas she holds that a particular condition rules joy out entirely, which is a stronger claim and a testable one if the conduits could be observed.