“Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.
”
I was sitting at my desk when the automatic email notification popped up on my screen: “Unsubscribed.” Earlier, I had posted to CarSafari, my website devoted to my love of hot rods. Apparently, the unsubscriber had seen enough.
Two emotions tango: disappointment and determination. Yes, there is a little pang of dejection. Like Sally Field at the Oscars, I want you to like me! At the same time, I really don’t give a rip.
Twenty years ago I read Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing. His book on the writing process is outstanding. King was recounting his adolescent attempts at writing for publication. The Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (AHMM) had rejected his short story, “Happy Stamps.” About this King says:
When I got the rejection slip from AHMM, I pounded a nail into the wall above [my desk], wrote “Happy Stamps” on the rejection slip, and poked it onto the nail. Then I sat on my bed and listened to Fats [Domino] sing “I’m Ready.” I felt pretty good, actually. When you’re still too young to shave, optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.
By the time I was fourteen (and shaving twice a week whether I needed to or not) the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.
King’s words have served me well as I have worked at this craft over the years. It was on my mind when I received the “unsubscribe” notification from my CarSafari post.
CarSafari is my digital scrapbook. And while it is different from Don’t Ask The Fish or Leader’s Life And Work, King’s words apply.
If you want to peer into my favorite pastime, come along for the ride! If you don’t, I get it. Your interests may be different than mine. The site may not be what you thought. Or perhaps you are drowning in digital data and need to offload another unwanted email.
Been there done that!
But deep down there was something deeper at work. As I watched these two emotions twirl across the floor of my heart, God’s word through Solomon also came to mind:
“Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.”
God is reminding me that there is a joy deeper than the thrill of a new follower, a satisfaction stronger than words of approbation. It is the internal joy that can only be celebrated by the one who experienced it.
Electronic wizardry and social media have altered our emotional score card. Today we live on stage, our lives on display for all the world to see. I don’t think that’s what God intended.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not an “anti-social media rant!” I have four websites and utilize a number of social media platforms. Communication mediums change. We adapt. However, as Proverbs 14:10 intimates, some moments are not necessarily meant to share or at least can’t be fully appreciated by anyone other than you.
There are some pictures that can only carry meaning to the one in it, who has fully experienced the moment because only they have taken every step on the path leading to it. For me, that moment was the sweet sense of satisfaction of overcoming an obstacle to achieve a “small victory,” which I chronicled in the post The Green Machine Diaries.
It’s hard for a photograph to show the pounding heart of the reunited friend, or for a post to convey prayers of deep devotion or years of tangled efforts. Indeed, it is the emotional infrastructure only you fully know because you have fully experienced it.
Only you have fully known the bitterness and only you can fully know the joy.
Of course this is not to deny the One who knows us, loves us, and processed every word before it ever hit our tongue. In fact, it is because He alone sees us on the stage “behind the scenes” of our emotional curtains that he gives us that wonderful proverbial insight.
So thanks for sharing in my joy, but if it doesn’t quite make sense to you, I’m good with that. I’m not sure it’s always supposed to!
Notes:
“When you’re till too young to shave . . .” from King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft. New York: Scribner. 2000. Pages 40-41.