The Pure Joy of Joy

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Onward to this week’s news.

There’s been a lot of online commentary this past week about how the Artemis II mission has been “competency porn” and a vital reminder about why we invest in science. The mission — start to finish, from long before the public began paying attention on through long after our attention will have moved on — involves thousands and even tens of thousands of highly skilled people, most of them public servants, working together over years and decades to do some of the hardest things humans have ever done, safely and successfully.

It felt a particularly vivid contrast set against the horror and stress and chaos on earth that unfolded during the nine days that the spacecraft blasted off, orbited, and returned. As Liz Plank wrote, “If you have spent the last week inexplicably emotional about a space mission, you are not alone and you are not being dramatic.… The feeling of watching something go right and realizing, somewhere deep in your body, that you had forgotten things could go right. Because when something actually goes right, when the people in charge do their jobs well, speak in full sentences, make decisions that protect people instead of endangering them, the reaction can feel strangely emotional.”

But to me, the Artemis II mission also has another reason for why it captured our national imagination — more simple and more fundamentally human.

Throughout, we got to see continuous and incredible moments of just pure joy — not merely the public relief and excitement of the successful lift-off and the splashdown Friday night, but the little moments throughout: Astronauts enjoying themselves in outer space, the wonder of the NASA scientists as they heard the reports from the spacecraft, and the incredible happiness and sadness mixed together when they suggested naming a lunar crater after Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll. “A bright spot on the moon”!

(Seriously, if you haven’t watched the scene captured above — the sheer surprise and happiness of the Mission Control team as they hear that the astronauts have actually seen lunar impacts and flashes, it’s worth watching. The clip starts about 50 seconds in, here. I’ve watched it probably a dozen times — the unabashed wonder of scientists who have spent their entire lives studying something and yet are learning and being surprised in real-time by things they had only imagined!)

And then, of course, there were the pictures from orbit themselves. Gaze at any of the pictures of the Earth, the moon, or both together and tell me that even your most Grinch-like undersized heart doesn’t stir — you can even see the Northern Lights! From space!

We — all of us together, right now — just became the first people in human history to learn that the dark side of the moon isn’t all gray, but actually filled with color. Can you believe that?

The size, scale, and mystery of the universe is the most fundamental source of human wonder. Ask me my favorite part about everything I’ve ever written — across ten books, hundreds of articles, and several million published words — and I’ll launch into a talk about the wonder of the development of life and intelligent life on the unlikely speck of our tiny planet, the theme of the second half of my UFO book.

It is all so humbling and so exciting at the same time, which the Orion astronauts reminded us as they — professional astronauts — gazed out the windows at the moon with all the joy and giddiness of a kindergartener. It’s not often you get to watch a livestream of people achieving their life-long dream.

These last nine days, there has been plenty of talk of “Moon Joy,” sure, but, again, my focus is on something deeper and more fundamental too in government and democracy.

Which brings me to Zohran Mamdani.

I couldn’t help this past week but think the connection between the viral images from Artemis II and the viral images of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani walking home — just walking — through the streets of New York for his 100^th day in office, besieged and surrounded at almost every step by well-wishers, selfie-seekers, and New Yorkers of all stripes. He looked like he was having so much fun out and about among his constituents. (Indeed, the New Yorker’s round-up of that 100^th day was entitled “Zohran Mamdani, Perpetual Student of the City.”)

Mamdani has been so inspiring to watch in office to so many because he seems simultaneously so comfortable in his own skin, but also because he is enjoying himself as mayor and enjoys being among the people who elected him. Has anyone ever looked like he was enjoying filling a pothole as much as Mayor Mamdani? Sure, he has armed security that follow him everywhere, but he’s perfectly happy meeting people on the street, willing and even eager to interact with him, and radiates that in every interaction.

Also, for what it’s worth, he’s actually accomplishing the things he told people he would — demonstrating his own “competency porn” one pothole at a time:

All of this, of course, contrasts deeply with the nation’s current government and oligarchic leadership. We are being led right now as a nation by a group of people who have ascended to the pinnacles of American and world power and wealth — and yet couldn’t day-to-day be more miserable, a fact that they all collectively broadcast with every fiber of their being. They’re crushingly insecure, toxic, cruel, angry, nasty, bristle with hostility in public interactions, and have spent the last year in an unprecedented retreat from public life, ensconcing themselves in taxpayer-funded military bases where they can be fully isolated from interacting with the public at all.

This week, Pete Hegseth called a reporter who questioned him “so nasty.” Hegseth and Karoline Leavitt are both so insecure that they pick fights with photographers who take unflattering photos. Donald Trump, in particular, bristles when women ask him questions — take your pick: “Quiet, piggy”; “obnoxious person”; “stupid, nasty”; “ugly both inside and out”; “are you a stupid person?” Marco Rubio hasn’t looked happy in public since noon on January 20th last year. Stephen Miller radiates rage. No one has ever enjoyed the normally joy-filled job of First Lady less than Melania Trump, a fact even reflected in Amazon’s hagiographic biopic.

And then there’s Elon Musk. Joyce Carol Oates’ roast of Musk last fall hit so hard because it captured such a simple truth: “So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates—scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’”

People notice when others seem incapable or lacking in the simplest of joys.

As Democrats look forward to the midterms this fall and the 2028 presidential race, there’s been a lot of talk about the correct policy platforms and the talking points that focus group best.

How exactly do Democrats thread the needle between Israel and Palestine? Just how much distance do they have to put between themselves and some Twitch streamer named Hasan Piker most Americans will never hear about? Is the message “tax cuts” or “affordability” or what? Can congressional Democrats vote against the Iran war supplemental without being fatally accused by Jake Tapper of “not supporting the troops”? Is “Abolish ICE” as politically dangerous as “Defund the Police”?

Every week seems to bring some new progressive think tank’s vision and consultant-driven quest for the precise words in the right order that will move swing voters 4/10ths of one percent to the left and thus deliver the exact number of electoral votes necessary for victory.

Sure, policy and message matters, but to me there’s a hugely important — and often overlooked — political lesson in the visuals from Artemis and Gracie Mansion too.

Public service and public life is a gift and something to treasure — the uncommon chance to do something for a cause bigger than yourself, and in NASA’s case, for all of humanity past, current, and future.

None of us are here for very long — particularly measured against the timescales of the moon and earth and the universe beyond. Each day, each of us wakes up with a decision: You can choose to fill that time with joy or with hate.

In “East of Eden,” John Steinbeck meditated on our shared daily choice of a life’s path: “When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world. We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal.”

It’s really that simple. The simplicity of virtue and joy are underrated in life — and especially undervalued in public life.

The only two Democratic presidents of this century — Barack Obama and Joe Biden — both radiated happiness and comfort in their own skin. Obama sold the nation on the simplest of messages: Hope. Biden had every right to be crushed by the sheer tragedy of his own life — and instead he woke up and chose joy. Has anyone ever so enjoyed just driving a car as much as Joe Biden did? That same feeling was, to me, the most successful part of Tim Walz’s campaign as the vice presidential candidate in 2024 — the dude was having fun. What other politician of our age could get hundreds of thousands of people to watch a two-minute video about gutters?

As we consider and survey the landscape of our collective national future, I believe there’s a simpler answer than most pundits and pollsters would believe: Political success will come first and foremost among the candidates who can evoke their own sense of “moon joy” in voters, candidates who play to their own strengths and comfort, and can demonstrate that they’re genuinely grateful for the chance to serve.

Any politician can fill a pothole — only a great leader, though, can look grateful and joyful for the chance to fill a pothole.

GMG

PS: No, but seriously, have you really LOOKED at how incredible these moon images are. No sci fi movie has ever created an image as breathtaking as this: