A Chair in Kent.
Week3, Dailies: Edition20.
I like that my Tuesday laptop reflects my mood - chill, and aspires for being quietly welcoming of the week to come. I also like that my wallpaper has a wallpaper.
Someone once asked what I do for "fun", and I was taken aback for a second by the candor and without much of the regular aplomb, I reach far back into my beta mode, and wonder madly - for an answer.
After two and a half minutes, I muttered a feeble:
"I'm sorry... Fun?"
(As if he asked me about the coefficient of restitution on the collision of the Higgs-boson and gluons in the large hadron collider.) And, in case I actually came up with something, in the next three minutes I thought I just bought myself.
"Yes, Fun."
(More like two seconds.)
Um.
I like to eat. (We were at a food centre, ordering food on a lazy Sunday).
Nod.
I also, like to hang out with friends. (We were hanging out.)
Okay. (End of query)....
Where was that going - and why was he needing to know? (Was that even a normal, ethical question?) I had to stop my mind from quizzing itself, like a mirror reflecting a mirror to infinity. When the truth was that FUN wasn't something we encounter in our daily lives - we actually go and plan, reserve, co-locate, and co-ordinate what FUN would be.
Sundays, are usually a good chill hour - after a bit of tea, and sand-walking (if you are near the beach), and a good meal afterwards, is I think better than what I think the danish calls Hygge. (Tell me if I am wrong).
So, I think after that assessment, and a two-year afterthought, maybe if i had an answer at last, (or at least for today) to that existential pause that caused my mind to summon something that wasn't (after all) that automatic.
Fun = Quiet - (traffic, shopping for black patent flipflops online) + (a no-pop-quiz-hotshot question on Sundays) x (one-half a portion of a black cod burger and salad with chilled organic orange-rosée or vermouth) = Hygge.
Five letters, one word, one fine Sunday, and a twenty-hour defining question that the supers from the next-generation reports create a multi-tasking environment to make sure the mentoring of founders are grounded in a casual exchange, and not the anxious-driven bullet-tasking, it now happens mostly on end of week - and vice versa - possibly, during founders' end of sprint and low-battery recharging.
The truth is, I can find fun in everything I do. And in nothing I do. It wasn't the activity that defined it. It was having a good time - whether that was in a team lunch, or a retreat to gather round the team for a quick fireside or a town hall. The definitive spirit of being alighted from our "work mode" switches on my "fun mode". But, maybe the fun was more in reference to having fun, in our own way.
And, after all the pandemic panic, and post-pandemic normal-finding - any real conversation, or the slightest hint of social activity, like tea - will ever actually be, fun.