Ingrid Fetell Lee

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.

I started asking everyone I knew and even people I just met on the street about the things that brought them joy.

It was, hi, nice to meet you.

What brings you joy?

It's 2008, and I'm just finishing my first year of design school.

And I'm at my first year-end review, which is ...

a form of ritual torture for design students, where they make you take everything you made over the course of the year and lay it out on a table and stand next to it, while a bunch of professors, most of whom you've never seen before, give you their unfiltered opinions of it.

So it's my turn, and I'm standing next to my table, everything neatly lined up, and I'm just hoping that my professors can see how much effort I've put into making my designs practical and ergonomic and sustainable.

And I'm starting to get really nervous because for a long time, no one says anything.

It's just completely silent.

And then one of the professors starts to speak, and he says, your work gives me a feeling of joy.

Joy?

I wanted to be a designer because I wanted to solve real problems.

Joy is nice, I guess, but it's kind of light, not substantial.

But I was also kind of intrigued because joy is this intangible feeling, and how does that come from the stuff on the table next to me?

I asked the professors, how do things make us feel joy?

How do tangible things make us feel intangible joy?

They hemmed and hawed and gestured a lot with their hands.