‘Each morning redefines impossibility
Each morning says “Here I am. Again”
Each morning means I am possible
Each morning testifies that I have not been given over to darkness
Each morning says, “try again”
Each morning is courage
Each morning is joy.’
If smiling was an Olympic event, I would be the world record holder. There are times when I have not been taken as seriously as I could have been, because people sometimes see smiling as a sign of unseriousness. But I am very serious about joy. In today’s dark world, joy is necessary. Joy is disruptive. Joy has subversive power. Joy interrogates impossibility. Joy looks at impossibility in the face and commands it to back down. Because joy is unpredictable. Joy is unexpected when it confronts despair. Joy unveils the true nature of the impossible. Because how do we define impossible? Something that cannot be done or as something that has never been done before?
Joy asks us to look to the future, full of outrageous hope for tomorrow. A rí se l’a rí kà, a rí kà baba ìrègún, ohun ti a ba se l’oni, oro itan bi o ba dola (because the things we do now, will be spoken of, the things that are spoken of, become boasts. Today’s boasts become tomorrow’s legends.) So let us boast in joy. And this is why we cry out, why we persist, because we believe a better song can still be sung, to pierce this present darkness.
Therefore, if we are born to die,
Should we not take care how we live?
Our time on earth can only end in death,
Our legacy, our legend, should be to leave behind a better world.
We have better things to do with hope than to stare into the abyss of yesterday.
So we take hope and turn it into Imagination, Revolution, Salvation.
Joy
This is how we turn the world around,
By turning ourselves around.
Joy.
Joy.
Joy
