I'm Fun, Goddammit!!
I used to be fun, I think. Or, I used to have fun. There is a difference, I suppose. Fun is often described as: when one enjoys something, or is amused by something. By that definition, it could be said that I do still have fun, but what I enjoy, and what amuses me, has changed over the years. The activities I enjoy today are more "serious" than those I enjoyed in my youth; today I like reading, writing, cooking, meditation, walks, observing others. When I was younger, I enjoyed these things as well, but I was more likely to dance, go to the beach, travel, hang with friends, and have adventures. My fun was more social then, and to be honest, it was much noisier.
In the past my fun was primarily motivated by the anticipation that something good was going to happen, namely, that I would meet someone and start a romance. Today, my fun is motivated by a desire for peace and quiet, or the desire to enjoy a good meal. Sometimes my fun is watching others have fun, without the desire to join in their fun--fun by association, if you will. I suppose this is a natural outcome of being older, but it is not just age--it's also a shift in what interests me from the external to the internal. I no longer hope to meet someone outside, instead I hope to meet more of myself.
The "me" that I hope to meet is the one who has lived six decades and maybe has two or three more to go. The one who has tried enough things to have an informed opinion of which things are better than other things. The one who has learned about love and sex--where they overlap and where they absolutely do not. The one who has accepted that some expectations of others will never be met, but that does not mean that they don't love me, and that I can't love them. The one who continues to be, and is getting better at, being curious, interested, and being willing to be wrong. The one who can have compassion for those who are not interested in getting better at being curious, interested, or being willing to be wrong.
Can meeting this "me" be fun?
***
Let me ask you something: When you check yourself in a mirror, how long do you take? A second? A minute at the most? What do you actually look at? How often do you stop to really see yourself?
Most folx who check themselves in a mirror are looking for one of two things: who they want to be, or who they don't want to be. Rarely are they looking for who they are in this moment. Because that is not always fun to see.
At the age of 61, I don't like seeing that I have circles under my eyes that never go away, or that my neck is aging, or that my ears have continued to grow. I don't like admitting that sometimes putting on a hat will not "make it all come together". But if I am to face the world, I must be willing to see those things! How I present myself has to be an expression of who I am now--anything else is just a version that will get pointed to and laughed at.
I get it. It can be more fun in the moment to pretend we are who we want to be than to be who we are. But as much as pretend is fun, it is not real, and one cannot live in it forever. Trying to do so will only lead to death, or insanity. I prefer life, aging neck and all! Facing the world allows me to experience the world fully, not just the fun, but also the pain, which opens me up to acceptance, gratitude, lightness, and humility. Good stuff!
So how do I make myself, as I see myself in the mirror today, fun?
***
Life moves pretty fast for those who are young. You would think that it would move faster as we age, since we have "less time" and therefore might be in a bit of a hurry. But as an older person, I find that I am fine with both life and myself moving slower. Rather than fearing I will miss something or be late, I prefer to take the time to really see, hear, taste, touch, or feel what it is that I am seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, or feeling.
The buzzword for this process is mindfulness, but it was a process way before it was a buzzword. I suspect that there used to be no issue with seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, or feeling what we were seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, or feeling. But that was a long time ago in the world, and for some people, it was a world they were not born into.
The problem today, I think, is that what is happening right in front of us does not need as much attention as what is happening, in our heads, in the past or future. There's an old saying that goes, "If you have one leg in the past, and one in the future, you are shitting all over the present." That is so true, and for our purposes, when you are doing this you are most certainly not having fun.
***
In order to have fun, I need to be able to relax. It's like I tell my sex therapy clients: arousal can only happen in a state of relaxation. When the brain is anxious or depressed, it does not see any use in being aroused or having fun--it has to be vigilant. Vigilance protects us, but it is mostly not fun, and in the past it was a temporary state. We would be vigilant when needed, then we could relax. Cut to today, where most of us are in a constant state of vigilance due to threats that live full-time in our heads, not just in the world around us. The trick is to let go of the vigilance when there is no longer an actual threat--no easy feat! But they never said it would be easy.
Yet what I have just said throws a curve into the theory that my decreasing state of fun is entirely age-dependent. It clearly is not! Today, fun is tied directly to one's level of either transparency or privacy; the fun happens when those levels lines up with one's preferences. Does your fun come from sharing, or from secrecy? I'll take privacy over sharing any day--the act of doing something that nobody knows I am doing increases my enjoyment. I can relax when doing something in private--no standards or expectations to live up to except my own--no one to disappoint, no one to please. In this relaxation I pay full attention in a way that ignites my senses and my curiosity, two of the three key elements of my fun.
The third element, engagement, can be a bit elusive. Engagement is a fast track to relaxation for me, as it zooms me out of anxiety and into curiosity about the person or place in front of me. For example, I know what to do when engaging with someone who is not a threat to me--it's more dicey when I am surrounded by disengaged strangers. The problem is when I only have "sharers" as options for engagement, because in my experience a sharer is never, never fully engaged with me or with what they are intending to share. I cannot relax into the conversation, because inevitably it will be interrupted by the other's phone use to take a call, look something up, or take photos or video.
***
I need to feel that those in charge of the "fun" are doing their jobs. This seldom happens today; this is why I mostly have fun at home or alone, because I know I have done my job! I remember one time I was dining with a friend at a restaurant. I was so tense because the servers kept trying to drop food off that was not ours--this happened about 5 times. It was a dark restaurant, so they would come up and ask, "Is this yours?", and we would have to try to see the dish and figure out what it was. The last time they brought us someone else's dessert and I just took the fucking dish.
This story has a good ending, however, in that I sent the restaurant a comment about my experience and how the floor staff did not seem well trained, and the manager responded personally with an apology and a gift card to "give us a second chance". I did! Sadly, it was only slightly better. Unfortunately, even good training cannot guarantee that a worker will pay attention to their job. A server's past and future don't wait patiently outside the back door of the restaurant for them to get off work.
***
Let's do a quick review and then wrap this up:
- How people had fun in the past: Participation/Engagement/Spontaneity/Awe/Curiosity/Joy
- How they have fun today: Consumption/Recording and Sharing/Passive Observation/Socializing in Solitude/Control
If you go with what is listed above, then I am not actually less fun now--the world is less fun. I wanted to write a fun essay, but as I read through this, I realize it is not much fun at all. I hope it is at the very least entertaining and thought provoking. I have not become more serious, the world has made me more serious, more guarded, more private, more conservative.
It is hard to be spontaneous and fun when your action might be recorded, viewed, shared, and judged by people who don't even know you. Is everyone that unhappy?
I hope not. I think that, instead of being unhappy, people are just not happy. But what do I want to be? At my age, I want to be mindful, humble, confident, accepting, courageous, and willing. I want to have fun, but more than that I want to make fun, I want to give fun, I want to be fun. If you have fun, I will too. If you don't want to have fun, I'll wait for you.
Ultimately, having fun is about feeling alive, feeling life.
As I was on my walk this morning, I felt like I was having fun, because I was engaged with my surroundings. In the early morning, there are so many interesting things to see! In Los Angeles, many people are awake at 6am, and many of these people are observable by anyone walking by on the street. Personally, I try to strike a balance between seeing inside someone's apartment simply because "their drapes are open", and being a creepy looky-loo. The truth is I can't resist having a peek at a moment in someone's life, right as they are starting their day, especially if it is on display.
In truth, they are seeing the same thing if they notice me walking by the window. We are all curious about one another, after all. But the point is that I am engaged in this, it makes me feel alive in the moment, and that for me is fun. I just don't know if it makes me fun. Perhaps we have fun when we stop wondering if we are having fun. What do you think?
