Safe, Rebellious Fun

Here we can actually taste yet another flavor of fun - the taste that comes from transforming the mundane into an expression of what? Art? The Persistence of Spirit? The Power of Whimsy? A Bunch of Different Ways to Tie Your Sneakers?

On the other foot, it's the 4th of July. Independence Day here in the United S's of A. Is there perhaps a fortuitous and unanticipated connection between a day of such vasty significance and an accomplishment of such artful triviality as shoe-tying?

This fun, the shoe-tying kind, has a flavor shared by everything you can think of that celebrates the unnecessary. Celebrating the unnecessary is also a celebration of our ability to free ourselves from necessity. And thinking that we can free ourselves from necessity leads to an almost intoxicating fun, like a fine wine, dry, yet defiant, like the taste you get decorating your house just before it goes into foreclosure.

A rebellious fun, yet unobjectionable. Rebellious, yet safe. Not like the rebelliousness we're celebrating today. Not like the fun of starting a new country, but a fun that tastes very much like that country-starting kind. Minor fun, granted, but sometimes lovely, sometimes essential.

Like the quietly delicious fun of making your signature extra fancy when you sign a Declaration of Independence.

Via Ultimate Insight

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith