Fun is a spritely thing. Hard to pin down, often out of reach. Children are apt to exclaim with satisfaction, “That was fun!” after riding borrowed scooters down driveways into the street while pretending to be chased by tigers. Inevitably, time slipped by and bedtime is long overdue, but the protests of “just once more” are hard to resist. That’s fun!
More than the clear moments of fun, it’s usually easier to notice when you are not having fun. The absence of enjoyment, the loss of all pleasure, the ennui of what is perceived as “ordinary” life is hard to ignore. Moments of unhappy boredom and angst obliterate any view of the horizon and leave the foreboding sense that nothing will ever be pleasurable again.
Miserable adults will exhort young children, “Just have fun!” as if none of the child’s work or relationships are meaningful. The purpose of being young, they imply, is to shirk as much responsibility for as long as possible, bouncing along in the “just for fun” category of life. This is both insulting to children—who have real work to contend with—and insulting to fun, which is more than the absence of responsibility.
There is no surefire way to demand fun from the universe. However, paradoxically, by analyzing and categorizing the experience of fun, we can behave in such a way as to coax more of it out of our days.
In her book, “The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again,” Catherine Price does just that. Which is lovely, because you, perhaps in a disgruntled state of feeling the lack of fun, do not necessarily want to complete this task. Price describes fun as the “magical confluence of playfulness, connection and flow.”
And there it is: 1) play; 2) connection; 3) flow
If you consider various moments of sublime fun there is something frivolous, not strictly necessary, and whimsical about the activity most likely. A game of tag can be fun but is rarely in the ordinary circumstances of life strictly speaking necessary, thank God.
True fun does not happen in isolation. Many things are enjoyable and worthwhile in solitude, but they are not “fun.” The experience of real fun requires other people. And not merely the presence of other people but our connecting with them in a almost tangible way. I say almost because that elusive power of connection is difficult to pinpoint and cannot be tied to one specific action or moment. It is, in the end, intangible yet, nonetheless real. We know when we have meaningfully communed with another person though we may not be able to explain the experience.
Flow: that glorious foretaste of eternity when we escape the oppressive sense of tedium and rerun, breaking through to a realm of endless newness. This is not a cheap novelty but a newness that comes from greater depth and richness of experience. In a state of flow, hours pass as but minutes. An incredulous six-year-old will balk at the suggestion that she spent three hours at the park. Those same hours which might drag in an uninspired day of chores and argument fly by, seemingly in the blink of an eye in the presence of fun.
Play, connection, flow. Thinking about those elements of true fun can put us in a frame of mind to discover it more. Fun, like an impish fairy, can never be forced, but it can certainly be drawn out of most people. Encouraging the elements of fun—with something fanciful and unnecessary, always with other people—we just might find that epiphanic moment when we realize minutes have galloped by unnoticed in the pursuit of a shared experience that makes all the rest of life worth living.
