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What do you do for fun?

My friend likes to ask people this question. He says the answers tell you a lot more about someone than what they do or where they live. Most people look slightly panicked at first, he says. A few will describe an activity they do but a surprisingly high number of people say things like ‘I don’t really know what I enjoy,’ or ‘I don’t have time for fun.’

According to Yale psychologist, Professor Laurie Santos, having fun – or a lack of it - is a serious issue. A conscious decision to bring more joy into our lives not only boosts the mind and body, it builds in resilience that protects us from the slings and arrows that life throws our way. A year and half of loss, sickness and restriction has made our need of it more pressing than ever.

I think most people want to have fun. They enjoy that confluence of playfulness, connectedness and flow when they experience it. Of course, fun relies on spontaneity and connection – two things the pandemic has suppressed. As life opens up a lot of us are having to re-learn how to enjoy it. This partly explains the giddy uncertainty many people are feeling upon attending parties or concerts. Perhaps there is a hesitancy around giving time or thought to fun, when life has been so serious and heavy.

Life is serious, of course. But as William Blake puts it: ‘joy and woe are woven fine’; sometimes they are so entwined we cannot separate them. Serious is not the opposite of funny. Unfunny is the opposite of funny. The fun, the joy, that people seek is not a frivolous thing. It’s an essential part of being human, something we are born with, even if it is something we can learn to lose.

My sister is a play therapist who works with children affected by cancer. For her and her colleagues creating fun is a deep and serious work. It is more than distraction or escape; it’s a conscious effort to stay in the moment and allow a child’s spontaneous joy and laughter to express itself. She recently visited a boy who had a day to live. Even in the face of imminent death, he spent his last day laughing.

The Book of Common Prayer puts it this way: ‘In the midst of life, we are in death.’ Later today I will attend the funeral of a friend. It will be a solemn and sad occasion. For she died too young. But joy will also take its place at the gathering. For how can we remember her life without recalling the fun and joy she brought to others? Yes, in the midst of life we are in death; but death does not have the last word.

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