Fun

Lately I think I have been neglecting to have fun.

I think I have been so seriously wrapped up in the process of being an adult; in navigating the paths of change in my life, discovering the depths of my spirituality and so yearning to learn and grow…that I have neglected to seek out simple joyous fun in my life.

And as explored in my previous blog… I believe that this is tied up in me accepting my humanity.

Because to be wholly human means there needs to be a measure of laughter, bursts of silliness, rainfalls of joy, fistfuls of fun and moments of complete spontaneity.

We should not always take life so seriously.  

I feel like a frowny old woman at the moment who contemplates the stars and the heavens wondering about their hugeness and how they hang there in such nothingness, worrying about when they might come crashing down violently on her throbbing thinking head… but does not actually see their shining beauty.

I feel like I’ve had my head down for so long in the book of life trying to calculate its sums and understand its double meanings that I look up dizzy and light headed with grand ideas banging around in my head like boulders…and surprise, surprise life seems like a long arduous journey where I must just simply grit my teeth and get through it.

A wise person once said to a friend of mine that joy is one of the most important things in life and that he should make more time in his life to seek fun and silliness and that life will spring forth with joy aplenty.

That wise person was me.

And the awful thing is, that most who know me know that I have this completely ridiculous side that loves nothing more than to have a great laugh whilst mildly embarrassing myself in some childish way. I love a good joke. I love to have fun an forget worries.

I say awful because I sort of momentarily forgot that was me.

But I must listen to the wise me that isn’t just wanting to tackle all the big questions of why? How do I become better? But also listen to the wise me that has pointed out that life without spontaneity, foolish frivolity and a good ol laugh isn’t going to be really that full of life and colour anyway.

And it’s not just fun through silliness, but through adventure, in nature, with friends, in activity and in the pursuit of something that doesn’t necessarily add to your inner most being….but just is good ol fashioned fun!!! Like bouncing on a big trampoline or playing sardines with your friends, or painting your nails or making a camp fire in your back yard, or singing along to songs on video hits and making up dance moves.

I feel as adults we often believe we need to have a reason to have fun, or we suffer from nasty niggling guilt trips. I know I do. It’s like, yes I am allowed to have fun painting, but as long as I am painting from a deep emotional place and learning about myself in the process. And yes I am allowed to have fun taking photos, but as long as I am blessing someone else with some lovely photos of their kids….

It is such rubbish really… because fun in itself is good and wonderful.

From the transition from child to adult, our eyes are also opened to the suffering in and of this world and the all of a sudden there is so much responsibility on our shoulders. It can feel like a continuous burden sometimes, and on top of that a never ending list begins to start of all that we SHOULD be doing. There is never enough time for all that we could be doing to better the lives of others and to keep our lives running smoothly and presentable.

So fun can get such a back seat. It can be overlooked and undermined. Sometimes it can even be put into the ‘too hard’ basket when we forget how to naturally and freely enjoy moments of abandoned joy and silliness.

When I was younger one of my favourite things to do was put my guinea pig in a roller skate and scoot it down the hall in my family home. It gave me pure, ecstatic joy to see its little head bobbing down the hall, claws hanging onto the sides like a kid on a show ride.

What made this experience even better was when my little sister and brother were in the bath and I could surprise them by rolling a squealing, fluffy skate past their open bathroom door and I could relish in their delighted screams and punctuated giggles from witnessing such a grand silly thing as a guinea pig on wheels.

Ok not so great for poor little Miffy but what a sense of fun I experienced, and then shared in with my little siblings.

And this is why kids can have fun so much more free-er than us adults.

It’s that connection to innocence and to purity that I think makes fun so exhilarating. That abandonment in feeling and the delicious relishing of a silly moment that makes no logical sense really, but brings such a burst of fresh happiness into our existence.

So heres my resolution.

To have more fun.

Not for the sake of bettering myself (yet paradoxically I will also be doing this as well) but for the reason that it is freeing of that serious burden of progress and success and that it is just

plain

pure

good.