On Enthusiasm
I'm calling your bluff.
There is a card game that has achieved underground appeal among college students. The game, produced by Steve Jackson, is called "Chez Geek," and follows the lives of college-age Slackers as they attempt to slack off enough to be the most relaxed (and therefore best) members of their household (the game is quite hilarious and innovative; I recommend it for an evening's entertainment). One of the ways to accumulate slack is to invite people over to your ficticious house, and one of the best people to invite is named Mr. Enthusiastic. In the game, Mr. Enthusiastic travels to whatever place is the most fun, with the most people, where the most is going on. His quote of flavor text at the bottom of the card reads "That's AWESOME!"
I am this man.
It is a point of personal pride that in any given situation, for any given possible activity, I am the guy who will do it. I am the guy who will chug El Scorcho salsa on a bet. When sea kayaking in Able Tasman National Park, I was the only one out of our entire tour group with the balls to actually climb Split Apple Rock. I am the only person I know of to complete his 21 shots on his 21st birthday. The list goes on and on. Win, lose, or draw, I am the guy who will step up to the plate and do it.
I say this only to set the stage for my disbelief at the general lack of enthusiasm that I see around me all the time. It happens in varying degrees in widely varying situations, but happen it does. People stay home instead of going to a party. They stay seated instead of dancing. They stay silent instead of singing kareoke. They dream about great things and never even attempt to achieve it.
The other day a friend and I were flipping through a new issue of Maxim Magazine (believe it or not, I actually do read those for the articles; the pretty women are just a perk). In this issue, we came upon an interesting list: The Top 10 Wildest Parties of 2006. Perhaps you saw it yourself. Included on this list were things like Carnival in Trinidad, Oktoberfest in Germany, Midsummer's Eve in Norway and Sweden, and the like. These are insane parties, parties to put all other parties to shame, such magnificent havens of booze, sex, music, and debauchery that legends are made and lives are forever changed. The sort of place that any good college student would kill to go.
Upon reading this article, my friend jokingly said that he was going to publicly announce online that it was his goal to attend all of these parties. I then looked him in the eye and asked him, seriously, if he wanted to. That was 48 hours ago, and his answer is still inconclusive, leaning towards the negative.
I fully intend to do this.
There is no good reason that you should not enjoy all that you have in front of you. These world-class parties are not a futile dream of fun. They are a very real possibility. It can be done. There are a thousand things like this for every person, big and small. The only thing that is required to realize them is the willingness to stand up and actually take the plunge.
This is not a call to carpe diem. It is far too mundane and oft overlooked for that. It is merely a reminder that life can be a lot more fun if you simply take it upon yourself to enjoy it. I would bet that virtually everyone reading this would like to attend those amazing parties. I would even wager that if asked lightly in conversation you would talk about how great it would be and how much you'd love to attend and maybe even start to make up whimsical plans to go.
You're bluffing.
How many of you, whipping these plans and dreams out of thin air, would actually end up going? Few or none. But why not!? It's a fully viable thing to do, and might actually prove to be a sizeable fraction of the fun you would imagine.
There seems to be this tacit understanding among people that the very act of doing things is a bad idea. Why not make a daring commando raid into an ostensibly secure building and poke around a little while? It's fun! That's basically my last recourse of argument here: my version is just more fun.
You know what, forget grand parties. Let's start small. The next time someone asks you to play frisbee, say yes. Or play a card game. Or make a movie. Or dance. Or play fruit baseball. Or eat something for money. Anything. Just do it.
Because it sure as hell beats just sitting there.
There is a card game that has achieved underground appeal among college students. The game, produced by Steve Jackson, is called "Chez Geek," and follows the lives of college-age Slackers as they attempt to slack off enough to be the most relaxed (and therefore best) members of their household (the game is quite hilarious and innovative; I recommend it for an evening's entertainment). One of the ways to accumulate slack is to invite people over to your ficticious house, and one of the best people to invite is named Mr. Enthusiastic. In the game, Mr. Enthusiastic travels to whatever place is the most fun, with the most people, where the most is going on. His quote of flavor text at the bottom of the card reads "That's AWESOME!"
I am this man.
It is a point of personal pride that in any given situation, for any given possible activity, I am the guy who will do it. I am the guy who will chug El Scorcho salsa on a bet. When sea kayaking in Able Tasman National Park, I was the only one out of our entire tour group with the balls to actually climb Split Apple Rock. I am the only person I know of to complete his 21 shots on his 21st birthday. The list goes on and on. Win, lose, or draw, I am the guy who will step up to the plate and do it.
I say this only to set the stage for my disbelief at the general lack of enthusiasm that I see around me all the time. It happens in varying degrees in widely varying situations, but happen it does. People stay home instead of going to a party. They stay seated instead of dancing. They stay silent instead of singing kareoke. They dream about great things and never even attempt to achieve it.
The other day a friend and I were flipping through a new issue of Maxim Magazine (believe it or not, I actually do read those for the articles; the pretty women are just a perk). In this issue, we came upon an interesting list: The Top 10 Wildest Parties of 2006. Perhaps you saw it yourself. Included on this list were things like Carnival in Trinidad, Oktoberfest in Germany, Midsummer's Eve in Norway and Sweden, and the like. These are insane parties, parties to put all other parties to shame, such magnificent havens of booze, sex, music, and debauchery that legends are made and lives are forever changed. The sort of place that any good college student would kill to go.
Upon reading this article, my friend jokingly said that he was going to publicly announce online that it was his goal to attend all of these parties. I then looked him in the eye and asked him, seriously, if he wanted to. That was 48 hours ago, and his answer is still inconclusive, leaning towards the negative.
I fully intend to do this.
There is no good reason that you should not enjoy all that you have in front of you. These world-class parties are not a futile dream of fun. They are a very real possibility. It can be done. There are a thousand things like this for every person, big and small. The only thing that is required to realize them is the willingness to stand up and actually take the plunge.
This is not a call to carpe diem. It is far too mundane and oft overlooked for that. It is merely a reminder that life can be a lot more fun if you simply take it upon yourself to enjoy it. I would bet that virtually everyone reading this would like to attend those amazing parties. I would even wager that if asked lightly in conversation you would talk about how great it would be and how much you'd love to attend and maybe even start to make up whimsical plans to go.
You're bluffing.
How many of you, whipping these plans and dreams out of thin air, would actually end up going? Few or none. But why not!? It's a fully viable thing to do, and might actually prove to be a sizeable fraction of the fun you would imagine.
There seems to be this tacit understanding among people that the very act of doing things is a bad idea. Why not make a daring commando raid into an ostensibly secure building and poke around a little while? It's fun! That's basically my last recourse of argument here: my version is just more fun.
You know what, forget grand parties. Let's start small. The next time someone asks you to play frisbee, say yes. Or play a card game. Or make a movie. Or dance. Or play fruit baseball. Or eat something for money. Anything. Just do it.
Because it sure as hell beats just sitting there.
posted by Will Jones at 9:51 PM
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