Thursday, January 12, 2012

Having Fun! JUST FOR FUN! Or, Radical Acceptance and Pleasure

I forget what was happening to me today but I suddenly knew that all I ever want to do is have fun.

FUN FUN FUN! YAYYYY!

But fun in a weird sense. Not just raw enjoyment or pleasure. But fun even when things suck. Playfulness in the face of pain or confusion.

The way I am thinking about fun is a bit how Epicurus talked about pleasure. People often think Epicureanism is all about raw, bodily pleasure. That we should talk about food, alcohol, and sex if we want to talk about pleasure. But I've recently learned that Epicurus believed that those pleasures of the body were the most fickle and the most likely to turn into pain somehow. Pleasure, for Epicurus, was to be found in the life of the mind, in thoughtful and moderate living.

Similarly, I will say that my sense of fun is emerging from a sort of radical acceptance.

This is idea of radical acceptance is something I'm really hung up on right now. How often do we think things like 'oh I wish I didn't have to do this, or do that, or go to work today'. There is so often this feeling of blehhh I wish I was doing something else.

Well, sorry, this is what you have to do right now.

And this idea of radical acceptance comes out in a phrase like: "This is what I have to do right now. This is my current duty."

I find that it makes certain things fun. Because once you accept what you are doing you can begin to appreciate and enjoy what you are doing.

I think that we will find the most pleasure in life if we unconditionally accept life.

This does not mean that we never strive to change our lives. It means that we accept the conditions that we are currently in despite our desire to change them. That acceptance, I suspect, will give us a clearer head and a greater chance of succeeding in changing our situation. If we accept and understand our situation we will be better able to change it.

Anyways, I don't know what to say here other than that I want to have fun all the time. And I think the best way to have fun is to accept the situation we are in. There is something about radical acceptance and finding pleasure in the moment we are in.

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About Me

I spend most of my time working as a mental health professional. I have been preoccupied with philosophy, politics, healing, and many other questions for the last 15 years or so. I am currently working on putting together my study of Plato and Aristotle with contemporary work in philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and trauma research. I use this place primarily as a workshop for ideas. I welcome conversation with anyone working on similar problems. The major contours of my basic project have been outlined here

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