Recreating the American Way

Let's start with the depressing part:

When the Twin Towers collapsed, so did the American Way. Suddenly, we became another Israel. Suddenly, it became all too vividly apparent that no amount of material success could shelter us from fear. Real fear. Not anxiety. Not the kind of fear that a therapist can help us with or a big house can protect us from. Or our constitution, or bylaws.

Our very infrastructure has been attacked by terror. Not just the infrastructure of our cities or our transportation system or industries or sports. But the infrastructure of the American soul. Suddenly, the absolutely fundamental guarantees for our pursuit of life, liberty and especially for the pursuit of happiness all became voided. The happy things that we created before 9/11, the toys, games, entertainments, the SUVs and home entertainment centers, money, posessions, status, achievement - of all the vehicles that we had invented for the pursuit of happiness - none of them was designed to take us past fear.

So, enough with the depression already. There's a shiney side to this very heavy coin. I call it "fun."

Coincidentally, I happen to be an expert in fun. I've spent the last 40 years helping people invent new ways to bring fun into their lives. And I do it all without toys or special equipment or anything that you have to own, without trophies or scorekeepers or anything that you'd have to win. What I do is help people find ways to make fun accessible to them, anywhere, with anyone.

First thing to note: it works. It can be done. We can create new vehicles for the pursuit of happiness, vehicles that don't require highways or oil or tolls.

Next thing: it helps. Even when we have every reason to be afraid, these new vehicles can bring us together, to places where we can celebrate our freedom and love and trust in each other, despite the fear.

OK. The way I do it takes more than an hour or a day. So it takes a week before I can help people get a firm enough fix on their own personal sense of fun, on their own unique abilities to invent their own kind of fun and to keep it going. But it's fun. From the very beginning. For the whole week. Learning new ways to have fun is fun. Teaching each other new ways to have fun is fun. Inventing new ways to have fun is fun. And you can't get much more American than that.