I already said that I like getting lost, but It’s not always as pleasant as I later tell it. And I discovered that this is a typical case of Type 2 Fun. Like that time in the summer of the pandemic when I decided to take a gravel ride in the woods of Mugello that was all in my head. In the sense that I had looked at the map, joined some dots and set off trusting in the fact that they were more or less places that I should have known. In fact, I hadn’t taken into account either the overall mileage, or the elevation gain, or the fact that I would be spending long hours in remote, uninhabited areas, without a cell phone signal and without finding a shred of a water source. When in the evening, already at dusk, I finally emerged on a civilized road I was totally “dilapidated” and it took me a good 1 hour sitting catatonic at a bar table, eating voraciously and drinking 3 cans of Fanta mixed with 1 and a half liters of water before I managed to pull myself together, get back on the saddle and head home for a of the most longed-for showers you remember.
What is Type 2 fun
Now this is Fun Type 2, kind of miserable experience while you’re having it, of those that you curse yourself for having gotten into, of those that you would like a way out but the only way out is you, and which however becomes funny in retrospect. That is, you also tell it while laughing because it is something memorable.
The fun scale
I must admit that I only discovered it recently the existence of the entertainment scaleand although I haven’t yet understood whether all this can be foreseen, organized or in any way foreseeable, I find it a good way to bring order to the experiences I have (and also the shit I do).
Type 1 fun
Type 1 Fun is pretty simple to understand: it is the kind of activities that are fun in themselves, both while you’re doing them and in retrospect. It’s the evening jog after work, it’s the weekend bike ride with friends with a stop for a beer, it’s the day skiing in winter or even something more adrenaline-filled if you want. Because ultimately the scale is very subjective and the boundaries are very blurred.
The only flaw in the Type 1 fun is that it’s not memorable. How many evening jogs, weekend bike rides and ski days do you have a clear memory of? And how many become the protagonists of a story to friends? If not none, almost.
Type 2 fun
Well, type 2 fun is the kind of activity that becomes memorable without the drama. Because when the difference between telling it and not telling it depends only on a stroke of luck you are no longer in Type 2 Entertainment. But in any case the bullshit somehow under controlthose days when we start with good intentions and then things get carried away, when the weather finds us unprepared and we return home with damp in our bones, or we have to leave the bike and dive into a river to recover from the heat, these are the type 2 experiences. The ones that essentially build our memories.
To say: that time I went to the Ötztal glacier in Alta Val Senales to see the discovery point of Ötzi, the ice mummy, it was July and it was supposed to be a “simple trip” but we found ourselves in a sort of snowstorm, at -6°C and between one thing and another it took us more than 8 hours to get back to the valley; or even that time I had the idea of doing my first Spartan Race with the recklessness of twenty years old but I was already over it and I ended up jumping the fire at the finish line quite on my elbows.
Or again when I agreed to do the swimrun but I hadn’t calculated that the waters of Lake Mergozzo in the middle are as black as you can get and I panicked so much that I planted myself vertically and start yelling at our guide that I wanted to quickly return to the nearest shore, and I wanted to do it by swimming on my back.
Type 3 fun
Beyond that there is Fun Type 3, which isn’t fun at all. Not even in retrospect, not even with a beer in hand in front of the fireplace. It’s the kind of adventure that you regret even in retrospect and that you sincerely hope that someone will somehow prevent you from doing again. As mentioned, the scale of enjoyment is very subjective and the boundaries are blurred, and if for some people finding themselves bivouacking in the snow is all in all normal, for others it could be something very close to the Last Judgment. I must admit that as I matured, I learned to avoid Type 3 Fun early on. For example, for me, paragliding: the time I came closest to it was the one in which I stood watching the others harness themselves and then, in a surge of self-awareness, I took to my heels and went down the mountain. quickly.
Why you should try Fun Type 2
Now, given that we all experience Type 1, and some even experience Type 3, why should we experience Type 2 (even more often)? Why discomfort, difficult things, those that require adaptation and evolution or, to use the term in vogue today, resilience, are a good thing.
After all, if we came down from the trees and out of the caves to go to the Moon, it’s because adaptation and resilience are at the bottom of our soul. And when we find ourselves faced with our limits and our fears (whether big or small) we leave the comfort zone and enter the growth zone. That is, the mechanism of knowing ourselves is triggered, it’s like standing in front of a mirror and dealing with ourselves without discounts or excuses. And these are (small or large) lessons that we need even when we are with family, with a jacket and tie at work or when faced with life’s big decisions.
Photo by Charles the Great on Unsplash
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