Meaningful Fun

Both the Social Security people and my accountant are telling me that I'm officially unemployed, hopefully for the rest of my life. I've had less than half-a-year to understand what this all means for me and the world, and I'm beginning to get glimmers.

Today's glimmer is what I'm calling "meaningful fun." Where I used to be focusing on the idea of "profitable fun" (and the fun profits thereof), now I'm beginning to think about "meaningful fun." When I used to have as my mantra the goal of getting paid to play, now my mantra is talking to me about "acts of meaning" and "getting to do meaningful things playfully."

And it strikes me how much of the fun I've been having of late online has been that for me, especially here, in this blog, meaningful.  And, more recently, the fun I've been having at my local library volunteering once a week to play board games with bored teens. Playing with people 50 years younger than I am, playing the same game together, learning new games together with them. It gets deep, I tell you. We get to know each other deeply, safely, lovingly, playfully, meaningfully.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith