I have really enjoyed John McManamy’s recent articles on play, and how it is absolutely crucial that we have some fun. So I invited him to elaborate a little here on that point.
Hi, Therese. Many thanks for having me here. As you know, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the whole topic of play-fun-happiness. I have to confess, I tend to be an expert in the very opposite, and so – I suspect – do most of your readers and my readers. In fact, I have more words for my depressions than an Eskimo has for snow, ranging from my “mental water torture” depressions to my “Mount Everest death zone” depressions.
Hold that thought – after all these years I’ve finally figured out that my state of mind on those summer evenings way back when Eisenhower or Kennedy was President is what I need to be shooting for right now. For me, it’s more than just a life choice. When depression gets the upper hand, literally, life stops. With fun, we’re talking the very opposite.
Looking back on my adolescent and adult life, I can attribute a lot of my loneliness and isolation and depressions to my own folly. I’ll give you one example:
Back in the late 80s, I moved to Melbourne, Australia to take up a feature writing position on the business pages of a newspaper there. I found a great apartment in an unbelievable locale surrounded by parks and gardens, I was working with a super editor, my colleagues were fantastic, and slowly but surely I was getting recognition in my new environment. In short, my work life and social life were going great.
How did I blow that? Easy. I failed to live in the present. I fretted about the future. I got over-anxious. Instead of being the kid who could have played ball all evening with my friends, I was more like my mom worried about getting me into pajamas for the night. So, in a practically perfect situation, I managed to convince myself I was miserable. Mental illness thrives in these conditions. My bipolar was undiagnosed and I was a sitting duck. In nothing flat, I was a stranger in a strange land with no job, no friends, no income, no prospects.
So fun is far from frivolous. This is smart living we’re talking about here. More than smart – vital.
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