pursuing fun

Many people pursue happiness, but I think they should be pursuing fun instead. To me, fun is a better and more tangible goal to pursue because of the fundamentally different nature of the two.

Fun is stateless while happiness is stateful. Fun is independent; it doesn't depend on past experiences, and each moment of fun is self-contained. Happiness is dependent; it accumulates and acts as a culmination of history, context, and more.

When someone asks “are you having fun?”, you think about the present.

When someone asks “are you happy?”, your mind often jumps around to different times.

Happiness is a much more abstract concept than fun, and often too vague/intangible to pursue. People know when they're happy, but can't pinpoint why because happiness is so complex. On the other hand, fun is simpler; it's much more straightforward to understand and experience.

I've always been more of a doer, and it's easier to know what to do to have fun compared to knowing when you're happy. There are two types of fun: type 1 is fun that's fun while you're having it, and type 2 is fun that's fun in retrospect, but not in the present. I love type 1.5 fun, which is a mix of the two, doing things that are challenging and difficult, while simultaneously having fun. This is what I think should be pursued.

Things aren't fun if they're easy, and so, pursuing fun that takes effort and isn't immediately rewarding is the perfect middle ground. Ultimately, it all comes down to living your life with purpose, whether that's through pursuing happiness, pursuing fun, or something else entirely. As long as one has purpose and things they want to accomplish, I have no doubt they will live a fulfilling life.