2013-08-26 The POwer of Fun. Fun in the streets.

A trickle of thoughts led me to:   there is a LOT of power in FUN!

Which makes me want to tell you . . .

 

Ha! Ha!  I don’t have to write it out.  Someone else (Jo Confino) has already done it!

A cool sequence led me to this:  Sustainability and joy: the power of fun can transform . . .  

 

HERE IS HOW THE SEQUENCE WENT

Thinking about our collective “wins”.  We don’t even realize they’ve happened. 

George Bush and Dick Cheney   didn’t get arrested for war crimes when they came to Canada, but have you noticed that they stopped coming?!  

They can’t even travel to Vermont in their own country now, for fear of arrest.

 

Which made me think of the fun the protesters in Vancouver  had.

Cheney couldn’t leave the building for a reported 7 hours!   It doesn’t compare with getting locked up in Guantanamo for years without a trial, but still, there is satisfaction in creating some consequences for war criminals when the justice system won’t  (so far).

Then came thoughts of another “collective win”, related to  Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, Julian Assange,  Edward Snowden.

Definitely NOT fun for them,   But did you know, for example:

(1)    Efforts to get Chelsea Manning a Nobel Peace Prize  (See http://manningnobel.org/)

 I experienced a “Yeee-es!”   moment when I added my name to the petition.    Can you imagine the fun the organizers had when they went to Oslo and delivered the petition to the Norwegian Nobel Committee?

Aug 26, 2013:  There are 111,354 signatures.

The 2013 Peace Prize will be announced on Oct. 11.

 

(2)   Another win generated by this trio  (Manning, Assange, Snowden)

(WE are critical players in creating the “collective wins” – –  if no one knows about the efforts of Manning, Assange and Snowden, their trials bear little fruit.  We are the communication lines to fellow citizens.)

Did you know?

President Obama could not deny the role Edward Snowden’s leaks to reporters eight weeks ago played in his administration’s plans to reform and increase the transparency of the National Security Agency. …

A win, right?   Read this analysis    Julian Assange: Obama Surveillance Reform ‘A Victory Of Sorts For Edward Snowden’, Huffington Post

Obama’s statement about Snowden generated this terrific response:    Snowden’s Father, Lawyer, Challenge Obama’s Claims

 

But!  Continuing the chain of thoughts that led to Sustainability and joy: the power of fun can transform . . .

 

I started musing about the fun personally for me:

I had fun at the May 25^th March Against Monsanto.

Then Penny and I had a great time going to 9 rural communities in Saskatchewan to help organize more Marches.

 

That’s when I wanted to write. . . What’s it about?   Hmmm . . . it seems to me . . . there is great power in fun?! 

I wonder if Gandhi had fun in his March to the Sea, mixed with the pain of bringing down the British Empire in India?

 

I googled “power fun”.

And laughed.  It has been written about already!   And very well.    Oddly, in the corporate context, please see:  Sustainability and joy: the power of fun can transform the corporate world

In case you don’t have time to read it all,  Excerpt:

. . .   therein lies a question we could all do with asking; are we having fun and does it matter?

My own feeling is that the adrenaline of making money and beating the competition can seem fun for a while, but like any drug it wears off over time and then people need a bigger dose to try to recapture the original thrill. At its worst, this pattern can end in naked greed and disaster, as we have seen in the financial markets.

By contrast, the ability to have fun is a gift of nature that is like a perfect dynamo. It keeps replenishing itself and never diminishes in its intensity.

More than that, while competition for its own sake is always a great taker, joy is a generous giver and people find it infectious, as long as they are not threatened by it.

. . .   At its heart, joyous people help to create a feeling of trust. They tend to be better collaborators because they like nothing better than finding common solutions, and don’t feel they have to go into personal sacrifice to achieve them.

. . .  One member of parliament said that political parties thrived on being competitive and in opposition and asked Thay, as he is known, about the Buddhist view of competition. Thay looked at him and asked the simplest of questions: “Does it make you happy?” The ensuing silence spoke volumes. . . 

 

NOTE: the full text (Sustainability and joy: the power of fun can transform the corporate world)  includes a link to a second, related article on the “power of epiphanies”, by the same author.  Both articles are thought-provoking and explain the Power of Fun better than I can.

 

I hope you are having fun, and enjoying the summer!

It’s soon time to start revving up for the next March Against Monsanto (Oct 12).  We follow in the footsteps of Gandhi.  Empires come down.  We evolve.  The power of non-violent resistance is becoming the power of fun.