Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A Risky Business

Having fun is an idiosyncratic, amorphous goal in which one individual's idea of enjoyment may prove to be terminally boring to another; entire industries are constructed around this amorphousness resulting quite often in urban blight of equally idiosyncratic sorts.

We can probably agree that having fun is a goal many of us set forth to accomplish at least once a day; we may also be able to throw into the pot the notion that some lucky few of us have been able to structure lifestyles to the point where little of what we do does not produce the feeling of enjoyment if not fun.

In that sense, you have a relatively good return on investment of effort expended resulting in fun.  Writing may become problematic at some point, but it has as good a chance of providing those sensations associated with fun as anything you can imagine.  In that sense, fun to you equates with satisfaction.  If a thing brings satisfaction, it may have been difficult, bordering on into tricky, but on balance, it will have been fun.

Reading and listening to music produce sensations of satisfaction you are quick to equate with fun.  Sometimes a surprise sense of satisfaction will slip through the cracks of expectation, where something you have seen or done or felt or otherwise experienced--such as the recent surprise of satisfaction at having finished the scant remains of a tub of chocolate pudding only to get the tub out of the refrigerator--will leave you feeling you've done something fun, meaning you are well on your way to a kind of euphoria or optimism best described by you as happiness.

You sometimes worry about your meanness of spirit when you have fun making fun of something, but there is a risk well worth taking when by use of satire or parody you can make a statement about some behavior you find to be running against the good of the commonweal.  In this case of making fun of something, you are likely to have brought forth the tool of anger from your tool kit, which makes you look at the number of times you have made fun of yourself in comparison to the times you have cast your fun making beyond you and out into the world.

Having fun is by all accounts a risky business, but not having fun or, even more dire under the circumstances, seeing the world about you as unpleasant in nature is riskier yet.

1 comment:

Storm Dweller said...

Maximus yells, "Are you not entertained?"

Why yes, I am quite entertained. Thanks. It's been fun.