Arranging Dinner

As I analyze what constitutes True Fun, I was able to isolate an activity that combined Playfulness/Connectedness/Flow.  I arrange to make dinner for my upcoming anniversary.  I started with a centerpiece, this time a brisket that has been frozen a while.  Need a bread.  I could buy an Italian bread, but haven't made French bread in a long time.  We all like samosas.  Never made these.  Had to select a recipe that could be adapted to non-dairy for our meat meal, but found one.  Halved the quantity.  No better soup in August than Gazpacho as tomatoes become plentiful.  Selected the Good Eats version.  Cucumber salad is easy and can be made early.  The brisket needs a rub after shabbos the night before and a few hours on low cooking.  I found a rub that I can assemble on Friday, season meat Saturday night and leave wrapped in plastic in refrigerator overnight.  Only boxed segment, couscous.  We have a lot of boxes to use up.  It's easy and reliable.  For dessert, a triple berry pie, really the only extravagance.  And a red wine, which gets me a trip to Total Whine, forcing me out of the house and among people.  Then a day of effort on Sunday, making for another episode of Playfulness/Connectedness/Flow.  

Seeking True Fun

One of my pleasures, though technically not True Fun, has been to watch a TED talk from an accomplished person previously unknown to me, search them and read something they've written, which usually takes far more than the 18 Minutes TED allows for the presentation.  I have a variety of ways of selecting which TED Talk I will watch, yes watch, as visual supplements, mannerism, and even chosen attire are part of the presentation.  One from the most recent series involved how to pursue fun, and even how to identify True Fun from its surrogates.  To say the least, I am fun and laughter deprived, though not absent.  When I got invited to a morning at U of Delaware for a reception to acknowledge something I had created, that met her criteria of True Fun:  the intersection of Playfulness/Connection/Flow.  So I know what it is, which gives me a head start of other readers of her book, of which I am about one third through.

There was a time during Covid isolation where I truly languished.  Not so much now, but I'm not flourishing either.  There are definitely times when I am playful, fewer when I am connected, some where I can identify being in Flow, very few all at the same experience.  I don't feel connected to anything important, indeed react to some experience with unjustified hostility.  Since connection seems the most glaring and frequent lapse, it is unclear at this point whether restoring strained connections is better or creating new connections might be preferable, or perhaps focusing on the ones not yet seriously strained, or most likely some combination.

Finish the book this week, credit its reading as one of my twelve semi-annual projects, and make an effort to acquire her composite of True Fun as my summer proceeds.