That's not fun!

Asked the fairly cute archaeologist/historian (she was young enough to be my daughter, so none of what you were thinking)...

Well I said...

I run - that's not fun!
I do my OU course - that's not fun!
I do my charity stuff - that's not fun!

I then engaged her in a discussion on the nature of leisure... The ancient philosophers viewed leisure as the pursuit of excellence, or self-improvement and especially divine insights.  Being a hard-core atheist the last bit doesn't count, but the principle stays the same.

My fun comes from doing things I enjoy - and although I groan and moan about pulling the trainers on (the running starts again next week) gives me a sense of pleasure that's hard to describe and the benefits and afterglow of a good run last me through a couple of days of work.

I may moan and groan about the essays and submissions deadlines (and marks) on the OU course,  but the challenge is good for me.  The topics are things that intrigue and make me think... I just need to get a welly on and write my essay on pilgrimage being a form of tourism... Hence knowing a little on the classic interpretation of leisure...

I may, in a dark corner, moan that its another day away from home or that I'm taking another day's annual leave to go to a meeting when I could be walking in the hills.  But the chance to change the world, in however small a way for the better is one I can't pass up. A lot of what I do is behind the scenes, the running and generally putting myself out there is the tip of the iceberg (the rest of the stuff is fairly boring... papers, meetings, more meetings, calls, another meeting etc etc).  However, sometimes something gets said that makes me smile...

"Josh told his teacher he want to run marathons for children with poorly hearts like 'Paul who came to Alton Towers for a sleepover and has a big orange spacehopper that he takes to the outlet' when he's a grown up!"

Now that's worth a couple of days of annual leave - though I'm going to have to find my space hopper more often;-)

So as she was beginning to look for her supervisor, I turned the tables and asked her what she did for fun... and she reads ancient Greek and I said - That's not fun!


TTFN

Paul

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