Are We Having Fun Yet?

Fun is the Ultimate

Everybody knows that fun is ultimately the best reason for doing anything. Love is good. Power is nice. But fun?

What good is it to have love or power if it's not fun? Fun is easy. If we can't find fun, we can make fun. We all know how. With a game or a joke or even a well-timed cheat, we can lighten even the most somber of intentions. And yet. And yet, for most of us, most of the time, fun is definitely not what we are having. Most of us spend most of our time making ourselves and each other miserable. When we teach children, or run meetings, or care for each other's very health, it's as if fun were the farthest thing from our minds. Our places of business are places of boredom and depersonalization, anxiety and isolation: Classrooms. Boardrooms. Hallways. Offices. The majority of our daily games are either boring or intimidating. The games, the places we play them in, the audiences we are playing to, even the people we play with...

Like love and power, fun is something we're ready to risk our very lives for. Hang gliding. Bungee jumping. Rock climbing. And yet, when it comes to our day-to-day existence, we pretend that fun has nothing to do with it.

Fun Has Everything to Do With Life

Here's the good news: we really ARE only pretending. We know, in our heart of hearts, that fun has EVERYTHING to do with it. We're like a bunch of kids pretending to be grown-up, pretending to be mommy and daddy, teacher and preacher, taking ourselves so, so seriously.

And here's even better news: At this very moment, we are meeting on a new playground, a virtual playground where we can play something else all together. We can pretend away the walls between school and playground, between learning and fun, between student and teacher, between work and play, child and adult. We can help each other and heal each other for the fun of it. We can play for profit and work for fun.

Here's the not-so good news: No matter how fun and co-liberating our virtual playground, ultimately, it's the world of the flesh that is funniest. Neither toy nor tool can be as fun as we are. We can have better games and better meetings, but face-to-face and hand-to-hand we must make them so.