Life, the Universe, and Dinosaurs

The title of this post should be the mission statement of human existence.

A friend of mine, recently, said that he thought life was much more fun if you treated it as performance art. I can't help but agree. The thing about living in the top one percent of the world by wealth, as most, if not all, of the people able to afford the internet access required to read this blog do, is that we have removed ourselves from the struggles that really matter. Human beings are programmed to ascribe enormous importance to their everyday activities - after all, for so much of our history, not doing so could easily result in death.

And yet, adults - and, even more so, teenagers - are nevertheless wont to ascribe undue importance to the trivialities of their lives.

Though it may sound as though I am protesting the meaningless of life, and that all existence is futile, and whatever else is all too common on so-called profound internet publications, my point is precisely the opposite. We take things too seriously.

People will sometimes speak of an "inner child," the force that provides immaturity, silliness, and, I believe, the only medium through which we can achieve pure joy. Recently, we have become better at accessing it; Monty Python, for example, achieved humour simply through silliness, and the title of this post is another obvious reference.

The problem is that we refuse to admit that we are still as captivated with the cool and the silly as we were when we were six years old. Everyone loves dinosaurs. I honestly have yet to meet a person who turned down a chance to play with Lego. Oh, we try to hide it, feeling as though it is socially unacceptable to still be enamoured of giant robots or space-ships or a piece of pie. But nevertheless, everyone is.

This carries over into aspects of our daily lives, mostly through the realm of hobbies. People who can no longer play with toy soldiers take up video games, or table-top war games, or chess. People who can no longer happily spend an afternoon saving princesses and ruling kingdoms do it anyways, with dungeons and dragons. And people whose imaginations are cramped by their feelings of social intolerance can always, always, read a book. Everyone loves being silly. And it is a tragedy when people will not allow themselves to do so.

This may sound like a glorification of nerd culture, and to a certain extent it is. We did get a lot right, after all. But it's not just that kind of escapist activity that lets people channel their silliness into their lives. Whenever someone climbs a tree just because they feel like it, that's what I'm talking about. Whenever people play pickup hockey in the streets, that's what I'm talking about. And whenever anyone uses their imaginations, or goes against their inclinations, or does something just for the hell of it, that's what I'm talking about.

Also, Dinosaurs.