FINDING JOY: THE POINTLESS STUFF IS THE POINT

DRUDGERY

In the fall of 2013, I was in my early forties with a husband, two kids, two dogs, and a minivan. My husband’s job was very demanding, and his father had recently died. My two children were both struggling, one with learning disabilities and one with a potentially serious health issue. We were in the slow, months-long process of having evaluations and diagnostic tests. We’d been living on the West Coast for two years, away from the network of friends and support we’d built over twelve years in the Northeast. It had been long enough to be out of the honeymoon phase with Southern California, but not long enough to have developed the deep roots we’d had before. Hours in traffic getting the kids where they needed to be combined with hours setting up appointments and navigating insurance and financial issues made life feel like drudgery. We’d survived so much already: surgeries, cancer, infertility, among other things. Would we ever have a time when things were normal and nothing scary was hanging over our heads?  

BRIGHT SPOT

There was a bright spot on my calendar that autumn: I was meeting up with East Coast friends for a girls’ weekend in Chicago. While there, I asked my girlfriends to see a show at The Second City. Famous for sketch comedy and improv, my husband and I had been groupies there when we lived in Chicago during our twenties, laughing uproariously at talents such as Steve Carrell, Stephen Colbert, and Amy Sedaris on the mainstage. I knew it would be a fun evening, and the show we saw did not disappoint. I laughed harder than I had laughed in ages. And that night, strangely, unexpectedly, a seed was planted in me: I was a middle-aged housewife with a sudden burning desire to take an improv class.

MORE DRUDGERY

The next day my friends and I flew our separate ways. I cried on the plane. I cried walking through LAX on my way out to my car. I cried on the drive home. I was a walking sack of misery.  I missed living close to my friends, and I was feeling ground down by my problems. Things grew even bleaker when I returned home to find my husband in extreme pain, in the midst of passing a kidney stone. He hadn’t wanted to interrupt my trip, so he had carried on, caring for the kids when he probably should’ve been in the ER. Thankfully, he was okay and passed the stone within a day or two. But Scott passing a kidney stone then encapsulated how life felt at that time: even if one of us tried to have fun, there would probably be some sort of crisis. If we survived that unpleasant crisis, being good soldiers all the while, we could return to the normal drudgery. How pathetic. Something needed to change.  

AN UNRELENTING URGE MEETS MY INNER MEAN GIRL

Meanwhile, my urge to take an improv class persisted. I visited the website for Second City Hollywood and found there was a class starting the next week that fit into my schedule. There was a space available in that class. Never one to miss her cue, my Inner Mean Girl fired right up:  “You know you’re probably going to be 20 years older than everyone else in the class, right? You do realize you’re going to weigh at least 30 pounds more than them, too? And also: this is actual Hollywood you’re talking about. There will be talented people there. You are a dilettante housewife. Also, if you haven’t noticed, your family life is not exactly issue-free right now. Maybe you’d like to attend to that. Are you really going to spend $300 on such a folly? Look at the medical bills! Seriously, what on earth are you thinking? Are you going to become an actress now that you’re chubby and in your forties? Hmmm? Improv class. Ha! What is the point?” 

She really is a bitch, my Inner Mean Girl.

But something in me had awakened at that Second City show in Chicago. I had an itch, and I needed and wanted to scratch it. That itch was the desire to play.  

A CHOIR FOR THE ENTHUSIASTIC

My husband was singing along the other day to a song he loves when suddenly he stopped to apologize to me for the quality of his singing. I responded that he should rock on because singing is fun even when we’re not great at it. “In fact,” I said, “I love singing, even though my voice is a C+ voice at best. I wish I could join a choir for people who are not super talented but are just super enthusiastic.” My husband laughed. “A choir for the enthusiastic.  I’m in!”  

Many adults don’t play.  We watch others play at sports, music, theater.  We elevate the exceptional among us and live vicariously through their victories and performances. It is truly great to watch those performances – I am not taking anything away from that – but we need something more. When my kids were growing up, it was becoming more and more unusual for kids to play just for fun. If they showed talent in any area, many were set on a forced march to greatness, with a private coach, a travel team, hours of practice, and a level of discipline that sucked away childhood. The Olympics, which began with noble intentions, now serve to remind me of some of the ways people have of ruining things: turn it all into a competition and make kids train from the age of three. Make it seem like the joy comes from the moment on the mountain top — or, in this case, the medal stand — rather than from doing the sport itself. Get a medal, get a scholarship, get a shoe named after you. Achieve, achieve, achieve.

Greatness, achievement, and winning are all terrific, and I do not ascribe to the everyone-gets-a-trophy philosophy. But I do believe that what everyone should get is joy. The pursuit of happiness. And sometimes that means doing something pointless or being crap at something and doing it anyway. For fun.

PLAY AWAY

In his book 8 Habits of Love:  Overcome Fear and Transform Your Life, my friend the Reverend Ed Bacon writes of play as an essential element of leading a loving life:

“Contrary to what some people believe, Play does not detract from our responsibilities or obfuscate our eventual objectives. It is not an excuse for being childish or irresponsible. Rather, the Habit of Play celebrates the humanity and creativity in each of us and encourages us to explore further and dig deeper, making us more resilient and less egocentric. It helps us find unconventional, even adventurous, solutions to problems that may otherwise appear intractable…

“…When we are strung too tightly, everything seems a chore. Our bodies become depleted, our minds muddled. We are unable to make good decisions, and our imaginative capacity shrivels. Allowing Play into our lives reverses this: our bodies become healed and our minds begin to blossom again.”

TURNS OUT ARISTOTLE HAD SOME THOUGHTS ON ALL THIS

Aristotle defined praxis as things done for their own sake, with their own intrinsic value. Praxis centers on relationships — relationships with others or with one’s self — that are valuable and meaningful in themselves. Play, relaxation, and celebration are examples of praxis. Aristotle used the term poiesis to refer to an activity performed wherein the goal is production. The end result of production is the product, not the action itself, and so poiesis rewards are found in results rather than in the doing. Examples of poiesis include earning a scholarship for playing a sport or a big raise at work for strong efforts.

TURNS OUT I ALSO HAVE SOME THOUGHTS ON THIS

American Capitalism devalues praxis and focuses on poiesis, seeking to motivate people through rewards. Many virtues I was raised with – duty, obligation, hard work, and self-sacrifice – are exploited by this system. We’re sold the idea that productivity is the highest virtue of all: we must hustle. We are usually either chasing a carrot on a stick, such as a scholarship, a promotion, or a new house; or worse yet, we are running from the wolves at our heels, wolves such as healthcare and education costs. We soldier through this deadline or that difficulty, waiting for vacation or retirement to enjoy ourselves at last. Praxis – doing something just because it is enjoyable or valuable to one’s soul – can easily fall by the wayside. We’re conditioned to ask ourselves what we will get out of doing something – what the point is – as my Inner Mean Girl asked me when I wanted to take an improv class. Still, we are desperate for release, and so we often drift into substituting some kind of escape, such as food, alcohol, drugs, or screens, for the praxis and human connection we need. These escapes are advertised to us with the promise that they will do the trick, while they more frequently trap us in addictions that line the pockets of the very same people who sold us the idea of hustle in the first place. These escapes will never give us the joy and connection we long for. 

BUT BACK TO MY IMPROV CLASS

When I saw that show at Second City in Chicago, I saw people having fun. I wanted to play like them, even if I wasn’t suddenly going to become an actor in my forties. Thankfully, my husband and my friend Lisa helped me to override my Inner Mean Girl and encouraged me to go for it. Improv class was praxis, and through it, I experienced joy. I expressed myself artistically, risking, learning, and stretching my brain, and I met a diverse group of people outside my usual circle of mom life. I had fun.

I brought the improv games I learned in class home and started teaching them to our kids. We played Zip, Zap, Zop and tapeball after dinner. I became salt, light, and leaven in our family rather than just a chore-doer, errand runner, and maternal enforcer of good manners and bedtime. When I started to play, life started to seem less like drudgery. 

THE POINTLESS STUFF IS THE POINT

Capitalism sells us the cycle of hustle and escape. But Aristotle urges us to find the Golden Mean between praxis and poiesis, and Ed Bacon tells us play is one of the eight habits of love. The pursuit of joy is countercultural because it doesn’t enrich anyone with money. Instead, it enriches our relationships and our lives.

Today, if my Inner Mean Girl asked me what the point of taking an improv class is, I would tell her that the pointless stuff is the point. That’s where the joy is.