I ordered it in 2019 but for whatever reason it hung out in my TBR pile for way too long… it took me a while to sit down and read it. My sister had been singing its praises (and Ingrid’s… she’s a fun follow on Instagram – she also has a blog called The Aesthetics of Joy). I talked about it on the pod and in January’s reading list but I wanted to write a longer post about it. It is all about (in Fetell Lee’s words), the surprising power of ordinary things to create extraordinary happiness. In large social gatherings, this can give rise to a euphoric feeling of oneness-dubbed “collective effervescence” by French sociologist Émile Durkheim-which elicits a blissful, selfless absorption within a community.Joyful, by author and designer Ingrid Fetell Lee, is one of the best, most interesting and helpful books I read all year. Synchrony shifts our focus away from our own needs toward the needs of the group. And when participants rocked in chairs at the same tempo, they performed better on a cooperative task than those who rocked at different rhythms. In studies where people sang or moved in a coordinated way with others, researchers found that subjects were significantly more likely to help out a partner with their workload or sacrifice their own gain for the benefit of the group. Scientists call this phenomenon synchrony and have found that it can elicit some surprising behaviors. Music seems to create a sense of unity on a physiological level. Similarly, studies of choir singers have shown that singing aligns performers’ heart rates. “neuroscientists monitored guitarists playing a short melody together, they found that patterns in the guitarists’ brain activity became synchronized.
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