Fun

  

If the definition of good is what makes you happy, then why do so many people equate doing what is right with doing what makes you miserable?  If the only joy to righteousness is the competitive edge pride gives us in our self-righteous piety, what is the point of being good if we give it up?  Without the corrosiveness of superiority, are we left with pure misery?  Who would have the self control to endure it, without that added motivation?  Who would want it?  Is our purpose in life, if we are truly good, to be miserable?  Why would we be predisposed to only be happy with what isn't good for us?  What animal in nature has an instinctual urge to make itself more miserable?  If something makes an animal miserable, it follows it's innate desire for happiness, and turns away from what is causing it misery, seeking out that which it enjoys the most.  Like a bear to honey.  Humans are no different than any other animal.   "Men are that they might have joy." (II Nephi 2:25)


When we stop catering to our drunken pride, we are naturally more happy, as we can then hear and feel the joy that comes from goodness, in it's pure form.  That which we fear will disappear with letting go, is there for us the minute the rest of the music isn't so loud.  The word faith comes to mind.  But perhaps this gentle happiness is not the only source available for us to feast our inborn desire for happiness.


I love exploring how people learn.  I find it incredibly interesting to find new ways to make learning fun!  But then I catch myself, why am I going out of my way to "make" learning fun?  Is not learning fun in and of itself?  If I didn't spend hours disguising learning as fun, would children or even people, learn without another form of coercion.  And if not, how does our species survive?  I find it hard to imagine that the distinguishing trait of our species is passed down from parent to child as this intrinsically unpleasant task that we must all force ourselves to do.  And how would this knowledge have started?  Does one really need to entertain the idea that maybe at the creation, God also gave first man the desire to pass on the necessity of unpleasant learning?  Did God risk having the very act that the survival of the entire species hinges upon, learned, and assume it would perpetuate?


God created the world, with all it's Giraffes and Venus Fly Traps.  We are God's children.  Creativity is in our genes.  When you take the opportunity for creativity, the freedom to make ones own choices, out of education, it looses a whole aspect of enjoyability.  So much so, that even when one is able to enjoy the other aspects of learning because external rewards, guilt, and punishments aren't used to facilitate it, sometimes enough fun is lost that learning still isn't pursued.


This is true for other things as well.  If you take the opportunity for creativity, the freedom to make ones own choices, out of work, it will lose a whole aspect of enjoyability, and even if the other intrinsically enjoyable parts are not overshadowed by external imposed rewards, sometimes work without creativity is just not fun. 
I find it frustrating that all these years when I thought I was "teaching" my kids to work by overdirecting their tasks, I was really teaching them that work was boring.  My common approach, that in all fairness to myself seems to be the prevalent approach of our culture (and perhaps many cultures), was to find some part of a task I was doing that didn't require decisions, thought, or skill, and let my kid(s) help me with it. 


In the coursera course Video Games and Learning, (my favorite educational class I have ever taken in my life), it talks about how a game is not fun if it is too hard or too easy.  This opened up my eyes to how important this is in chidren learning work skills.  If it is hard to "get" the kid to set the table, maybe it is boring and they would enjoy cooking the food or even programming a game in order to make money to pay someone else to cook the food, instead.  Yes, that means that work is always a learning environment, and by default, rather messy and not always done exactly right, (or even close).  But is not parenthood always a learning environment as well, with much the same results?  This life is to learn.


And ultimately, if you take the opportunity for creativity and the freedom to make ones own choices, out of being good or righteous, out of doing the right thing, then you take much of ones intrinsic desire to do good, away.