What do you do for fun?
I used to have such a curiosity when I met people. Ever since I can remember I was full of questions. I would meet new people even people I already knew and I would ask so many questions and we would end up deep in a conversation about their relationship with their siblings, there favorite vacation spot, even why they love horseback riding so much. The possibility was endless but somewhere along the lines I stopped caring stopped asking and I am finding my way back to that. For a while my interests had narrowed. I think that shut me off to possibilities and relationships that could have been. I never lost my curiosity it was just more directed. I'm keeping that direction but in conversation I am there to learn with no direction. I am so interested in what shapes people, their journey and how they have navigated it.
This is why I ask people the same shit I asked when I was 8, 10, 15, 18 and I will ask this till I die, "what do you do for fun?"
You'd be amazed by how many people are absolutely stumped by this question and it's alarming. If you ask a child though, you'll see their face light up, they'll tell you they chase their brother, play angry birds, baseball, whatever but it's electric to be around. With adults it's the same way when someone tells me about their crocheting hobby and their damn passionate about it I can't help but to be interested.
I don't know where the problem comes from but in my best guess I think us Americans have been lied to. Our culture lives like we're in a video game and we will respawn once we die. We act as if this life is eternal and will never end. In part because none of us have died and come back to life at least not for more than a few minutes. When you step back and look at death as a part of life, it is so beautiful. It amazes me that one thing can power everything we do? That doesn't mean that death needs to consume us, but it is ever present.
A fun life. Isn't that what we all want? I know I do. That doesn't mean a life without pain because I believe all of the best things in life come from pain and struggle. Ex. a baby. Where did we lose site of that fun? Why is it then I ask someone what they do for fun they have no answer but drink and go out on the weekends. I guess I don't except that as a reasonable answer but that's everyones answer...thats a bleak life in my eyes. Standing spending all the hours of sweat and tears you earned, on over priced drinks to destroy your hearing and lose your voice because the fucking dj has the volume cranked to 12. If that's what lights you up then great but there is so much more to life than working, drinking and slowly dying.
So I'll ask one more time.
What do you do for fun?