Joy Is Not a Luxury

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the cost of living, wages and what governments fail to do. Those things matter. But if we speak only of what is going wrong, we can forget why any of this matters to us in the first place.

A table of friends. A long walk with no useful destination. A song that pulls you back into a room you once knew. None of these solves a housing crisis. None is trivial because it does not.

The life behind the numbers

Public debate has a habit of counting what is easiest to count. We know the price of rent and a basket of groceries; we are less good at describing the evening someone gives up because there is nothing left after paying for them.

When I argue for a more affordable Malta or a more humane future of work, I am not asking for an existence reduced to survival. I am asking for time and space to enjoy being alive. A society should be judged by how much ordinary happiness it leaves within reach.

A different kind of seriousness

This Opinion desk will examine power and ask hard questions. It will also speak about love, delight and the odd beautiful mistake. That is not a break from serious journalism. It is a reminder of its purpose.

Joy is not the reward we get after every problem is solved. It is one of the things we are trying to protect while solving them.