Are We Having Fun Yet?

The other day, an online friend of whom I am quite fond made the extravagant claim that, were we to be pals in real life, she could teach me how to have fun. I was skeptical of her ability (or indeed, anyone's) to accomplish this. I've been thinking about it ever since, and wondering why I don't ever seem to have fun. I do have experiences I would consider to be satisfying, or enjoyable, but not "fun." I tried to define what I think fun actually is, and had a hard time figuring it out. I know it when I see it. Children seem to have fun playing, and so do my cats. Other adults seem to have fun at parties, or doing things like skiing. I came to the conclusion that "fun" involves: 1) an absence of need to accomplish anything concrete, and 2) a certain degree of abandon, or un-selfconsciousness.

As any of my readers will readily ascertain, both 1) and 2) are utterly foreign to my nature. I remember reading a book about Myers-Briggs personality typing a while ago, and coming out as an INTJ -- as part of the discussion of this personality type, there was a sentence that said: "It's almost heartbreaking to watch this type of person try to enjoy himself." I hadn't thought about that in a long time, but it came back to me as I was considering this issue.

I then started to wonder whether it's even important for me to be able to have fun. Perhaps I have a different internal definition of what "fun" is. I don't feel at ease unless I am doing something I consider to be worthwhile. The things that I see people doing for fun usually strike me as a complete waste of time (getting drunk, for example). Not too long ago, I was on my way to a chamber music concert, and someone said to me: "Have fun!" I was insulted by this, on some visceral level. I wasn't going in order to have fun. I was going to Get Something Out of It, which I did. It's quite important to me to Get Something Out of Things, which seems in some way adversarial to many people's concept of fun.

If I were going to cast a vote in favor of what I really need out of life, "fun" wouldn't be on the list. "Peace" would be the first item. This may explain why, in my unstructured leisure time, what I really like to do is sleep. Maybe I'd need less sleep if I enjoyed myself more. I don't know. In some sense I enjoyed writing this post, but I wouldn't say I had fun doing it.

Via David Rochester