Remember fun?
This week I’d like to share an article that made me feel seen: “What Was Fun?” by Rachel Sugar in Vox.
“Are you fun?” I wonder, staring at focaccia recipes on the internet. Is Emily in Paris fun? Is a Zoom birthday party fun, is ordering a pizza fun, are jokes fun, is wine fun? Have I ever experienced fun?
Seven months into the Covid-19 pandemic, I have lost track. In the first weeks of the pandemic, if you weren’t sick, if your family wasn’t sick, if you were marginally but not essentially employed, if you were lucky, you could get through the day hopped up on the adrenaline of panic from the relative safety of your home. All routines had been disrupted—schools were closed, offices were done, grocery stores were minefields, toilet paper was out—and everything was terrible, but at least fear was a novelty. Now nothing is new—even the news is not new, so much as it is escalating variations on the same ghoulish set of themes. To be lucky, now, is to have all the days feel like all the other days.
My quarantine Groundhog Day is a pretty good one. I write, I cook, I do yoga, I meditate, I read, I watch television but not too much. I walk the dog, which means I go outside. I eat meals with my husband. Often but not always, I do crafts, I bake, or I have long phone calls with my friends and family. I get plenty of sleep. I eat my #1 comfort food. I’m engaged with my work but not overly stressed out by it (at least not while my book deadline is still a year away). Sometimes I fall into the void, but not every day. I’ve found genuine satisfaction and fulfillment—more than I ever expected, truly—in cultivating the presence and discipline it takes to do the same things over and over and still have life feel interesting. You might remember that I once asked, “what do I need to do to live like this forever?” Well, I found it. Is it fun? Not really.
One of the hooks of Sugar’s article is finding out that no one really understood fun even in the Before. Its exact contours are incredibly personal and subjective, which makes it hard to study—but ironically, its outlines may be clearer than ever in the negative space it has left behind in our current lives. Broadly speaking, fun is a pleasant experience you can lose yourself in. For me and probably for you, the inaccessibility of fun, seven months into the pandemic, doesn’t stem from the dearth of possible pleasant experiences we could have. Rather, we can’t have fun right now because we never get a break from ourselves. (The closest I get is meditating. Is meditating fun?) In the age of face masks and social distancing and doing everything you can to not spread a deadly virus, “losing yourself” isn’t really on the menu, even at a restaurant so outdoors it’s actually a picnic on the moon. As Sugar writes, “It is fun to go for walks, to see friends on outdoor benches, to stream movies, to make doughnuts; what is not fun is me.”
Read the whole thing, and don’t miss the very relatable content about “fun” in the fall of 1918. Player pianos! Fun!