why are ethical living and having fun so often in conflict?
common forms of not-so-ethical fun
inebriation: drinking, drugs
fireworks (mostly scary and harmful for non-human beings)
plastic decorative waste
overconsumption (of food and stuff)
shopping? “retail therapy”
what is ethical living?
Attempting to live in a way that minimizes harm to self and others. A way that maximizes freedom for oneself and others.
the real freedom that we experience resides in ethics. Ethics implies not just an ethics of the individual, but an ethics, which is related to our being with others. And I think that we see this very clearly in things like the monastic discipline, which in a sense, provides a morality and an ethics for people living together. And we could translate that even into terms of lay precepts, where if we live by some kind of perceptual basis, then what we are doing is we are living a life without creating a debt, a conditional debt, which is going at some point to catch up with us. 1
what is fun?
fun vs playfulness
Playfulness isn’t about playing games. It’s a quality of lightheartedness that allows you to do things in everyday life just for the pleasure of it. Studies show that playfulness can be stimulated by simply looking for ways to be more playful, and that playful people are better at managing stress.2
what is the impulse toward unethical / why do we want to do unethical things sometimes?
- wanting to be free of barriers, free of inhibition
where do they meet? (a venn diagram)
fun: singing, dancing, carousing, inebriation, uninhibitedness, fireworks
ethical: singing, dancing
ethical + fun: singing, dancing
prosocial activities