Fun and War

I guess it's going to get easier and easier to believe that we are really at war. Until then, for the children's sake, I think we'd better stock up on some good toy guns. We're going to need them. They've got water pistols and Nerf Guns of such technical proficiency that one would think them to be weapons capable of glass destruction - which they aren't, which is the whole point.

Toy guns because our kids are going to need to play with all this. War is too big of a crime to be able to integrate any other way. It is too impossible to believe that we are actually capable of such calculated violence, for whatever cause, and so we all are going to need to play with it, a lot.

Son Elyon writes:

There is no fun in war, even if it is only a conflict. I cannot believe that there could be real deepFUN in killing people, even if they are your enemy.

At the same time, for those in a kill or be killed situation, there must be moments of less fear, moments of flow even. There must be lighter moments, ways to kill time, or kill some braincells while waiting to kill others. But surely even the most fun a war could ever be could never be really phun.Or can it?

For me, for my children, for my friends and acquaintances, even for those who think I might be their enemy, I hope for a world beyond war. I hope for a world at peace with play.

In the meantime, might I suggest that now is also the time to take your Frisbees out and use them as weapons of peace. Play is about to become even more of a political act than it ever was, even after 9/11.