“Have fun!”

There’s something paradoxical about telling someone to “have fun!”, the same way it’s ironic to invite them to “relax!” (exclamation mark included). It might replace, at times, creating the conditions necessary to do those things, and delegate that to an encouragement. I might be on the sofa snacking chips, with no interest in entertaining you, and “have fun!” is the closest I get to providing some fun for you. Hopefully, you find it elsewhere. You might similarly encourage me to “relax” while you leave, as you’re in no way willing to relax with me or help me do that. Hopefully, I’ll help myself.

Now, these are just figures of speech, wishes that are engrained in our conversations. We also say “have a safe flight” (like it was up to me to land the plane) or “enjoy!” (like enjoyment could be wished or encouraged). But they are a silly example to get your attention to something more subtle.

We mistreat our bodies and minds in all sorts of ways, and while some are well known and have produced endless self-help books (from eating healthy, to meditating, setting boundaries, and exercising), others are less spoken of.

One has to do with our misunderstanding of intention. “Where there’s a will there’s a way”, “Se vuoi puoi”. If on the one hand there are people who barely even recognize their needs or intentions, let alone work to satisfy them, on the other there’s a new group of humans who know a lot about categories of desires. They know how many orientations, whether political or sexual, are out there. They know how manipulation and toxic dynamics work, what respect and limits are, how to approach others and how they want to be approached. They know what’s their type, what red flags to look out for, where to find good and where to find evil. You won’t surprise them with new strategies or reasoning, because they are hyper aware of where they’re going and what prevents or facilitates that trajectory.

Sometimes, however, purpose becomes compulsion. Even though our quotation marks are filled with emotional content, the tone itself is artificial. Our voice reveals an attempt to turn ourselves into machines.

I do this, I add that, I top it all up with some more of these (where this, that and these are all things I know to be good) and I’ll get the predictable result of something good. I set the intention to have fun, the one to relax, I imagine a world in which I’m reaching out for these outcomes, and I get there.

On the way to self-actualization, we missed it and kept running, bumping into entitlement instead, and that led us to misinterpret needs for rights, and intentions for reality. We split our world and ourselves even more, because things do not mutate miraculously, and we looked at them impatiently hoping awareness was going to get us where only emotions can, and only gradually, slowly, painfully and respectfully.

We got angry and frustrated at the part of us who stayed the same even though we realized it was hurting us, and idealized even more the one who can “have fun!”, “relax!”, “enjoy!”. Sure we can learn to get somewhere different from where we are, but only with ourselves as allies.

(Note: I often start in third person and then shift into first. It’s not coincidental, it’s actually very natural and it usually means: what they do, we do.)