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rfmcdonaldI'd like to thank the people who responded to my post yesterday for their concern, and I'd like to apologize to them for provoking their worry. Perhaps I didn't sufficiently emphasize the way in which the visit was conducted in full consciousness of just how cracked Scientology is; perhaps I haven't, in the past, talked enough about how I really like ethnographic research. Certainly, I should have written how a no-commitments visit to a religious cult is a form of fun for me.
Recently, I've begun to notice that the activities I enjoy tend to involve a certain frisson, a manageable level of danger. I first noticed this in July in 2002 in visiting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vcutag, when various transportation problems resulted in my arriving in Richmond a half-dozen hours late via Greyhound without any certain knowledge that the only person I knew in that city knew where I was. At the time it was a rather stressful situation, but with remarkable speed I began to look upon it as an adventure successfully navigated, a series of adrenalin surges first accomodated then welcomed.
The element of risk seems, to me, critical to enjoyment. This might be proof of my youth, of the sort of feeling that Sinéad O'Connor sang about in her "Troy":
I don't think so, though. If play is, as many theorists of childhood development argue, a form of learning, then what better way is there to learn and improve oneself than to take risks, to try to do things one has never done before, to risk failure with all its potential costs to the person while knowing that new kinds of enjoyable success are possible? Leaving Prince Edward Island, going to graduate school, moving to Toronto, finding a job, successfully adopting an entirely new social persona, dating--all of these things would have been considered high-risk activities by me not so long ago. And yet, the fruits of success.
Recently, I've begun to notice that the activities I enjoy tend to involve a certain frisson, a manageable level of danger. I first noticed this in July in 2002 in visiting
vcutag, when various transportation problems resulted in my arriving in Richmond a half-dozen hours late via Greyhound without any certain knowledge that the only person I knew in that city knew where I was. At the time it was a rather stressful situation, but with remarkable speed I began to look upon it as an adventure successfully navigated, a series of adrenalin surges first accomodated then welcomed.The element of risk seems, to me, critical to enjoyment. This might be proof of my youth, of the sort of feeling that Sinéad O'Connor sang about in her "Troy":
We were so young then
We thought that everything
We could possibly do was right
I don't think so, though. If play is, as many theorists of childhood development argue, a form of learning, then what better way is there to learn and improve oneself than to take risks, to try to do things one has never done before, to risk failure with all its potential costs to the person while knowing that new kinds of enjoyable success are possible? Leaving Prince Edward Island, going to graduate school, moving to Toronto, finding a job, successfully adopting an entirely new social persona, dating--all of these things would have been considered high-risk activities by me not so long ago. And yet, the fruits of success.
