Notes on Fun

The idea, the having and the aftermath.

The idea of fun

In some ways, dreaming of fun is as fun as fun itself. Everyday, we ride a persistent merry-go-round of romanticising the potential of it and get lost in imagining its endless scenarios. It starts innocently, looking forward to the next plan and before you know it, you’re sitting wide-eyed and open-mouthed, an hour into watching a film that plays purely in your own psyche: slo-mo smiling, liberated dancing and throw-your-head-back laughing. You look good doing it, of course, and in your mind, a doting group of friends surround you with similar sensibilities of “I’m having the greatest night of my life”. 

What a scream, you think, before losing another hour to your compelling fantasy of future fun. 

A good time holds so many endorphins that even the imagining of it is wholly transformative: it carries us through lifeless office days, rescues us out of submersive moments of loneliness and wills us forward into gathering others again and again. Thirsting for these tastes of pleasure keeps us riding – rather than drowning in – the cyclical waves of everyday life, even when we’re hopeless and feel heavy. The anticipation of something unexpected, something lighthearted, something leisurely and something exciting sustains us – probably even more than we’re aware of. At its least, sitting back and dwelling on fun sparks a notion of warmth and at its most, it heroically saves us from existential spiralling. 

What are you looking forward to next?

The having of fun

The act of fun is as mystifying as love or attraction or faith; it can’t be quantified, there’s no equation and it can’t be created with any sense of guarantee. Fun is, by far, my favourite mystery of life. You could take the same people, put them in the same place with the same music and still witness a completely different dose of enjoyment – depending on the day. Fun is completely nonsensical. Sometimes it shows up and sometimes it… just… doesn’t. 

Why? I have no idea, and I sort of love that I don’t. 

When the embers of fun are stoked successfully, it’s ecstasy. Isn’t this fun! I’m having so much fun! Are you having fun? Rooms of expectant individuals hover excitedly with dilated pupils, congratulating each other with affirming looks on their collective win of the enjoyment jackpot: Look! We did it! No-one can take this moment away from us! In these instances, I often have an out-of-body moment of poignancy. I look around at faces painted with undignified bliss and wish I could capture the feeling in a bottle, ready to pour out again when times of despair, or boredom, or melancholy inevitably follow. 

There’s something about the having of fun that has the power to not only distract you from the stings of everyday life but to distract you from you, yourself, too. And, in a world that encourages obsessive inner-reflection, nothing feels healthier than having your thoughts deflected away from you altogether: we forget what we look like, block out the critical echo of what we’re saying and get lost in something that’s bigger than us.

Is there anything better?

The aftermath of fun

The debriefing of fun keeps the euphoria of having fun from diminishing. Every memory recalled, conversation unpacked or joke revisited acts as a giddy fuel that keeps the recollections of enjoyment lit and wildly burning. In the flames of the aftermath of fun, we have the opportunity to remember who we were in the throes of joviality – and often, we like that person a lot. It’s nice, and somewhat rare, to feel pleased with a version of ourselves, isn’t it? Maybe it’s because in the priorities of fun, expectations get relegated and spontaneity is promoted. It’s less about pressure or personal performance and more about leaning into the complete uncertainties of social dynamics. That’s why we experience such elation when it hits us, because there’s a magic to having fun that is impossible to fully rationalise. 

As time moves us further away from the delight of our previous reflections, we are beckoned into a purgatory between former and future fun. It is here that insecurity can resurface and questions can arise; am I having enough fun? Did they have fun? Do others perceive me as having fun? Did I document my fun? Does that mean I didn’t actually have fun? The two sides of the coin of the conceptual push and pull us into a state of suffocating overthinking – if we let it.

At this point, the lure of the idea of fun steps back in as a sweet antidote to save us from ourselves. You pull out your calendar, message some friends and attempt to craft a setting where joy and high spirits might just make an appearance again. 

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In this electrifying cycle perpetuated by the thrills of uncertainty, many things remain unknown, but there is one thing that I am unwaveringly sure of: the idea, the having and the aftermath of fun is what keeps us living.