“That was fun.” 

“Was it?”

“Oh, yeah. Mix of type II and type III fun though.”

If you didn’t know, there are four types of fun.

Type I fun is “weeeeeeee!”

It’s hedonistic, pleasurable. Riding a roller coaster, eating a sweet, having a laugh. 

That was fun 🤩. 

Type II fun is earned delight.

Typically involves exertion or practice or skill or patience. Perhaps over long horizons.

Doing a startup or having kids, canonical type II fun.

Someone else’s type I fun (e.g. crochet, distance running), may be someone else’s type II fun. Love that for you!

Type III fun is brutal.

You’re in the hurt locker: muscles screaming, gasping for air, frozen cheeks, throat parched. You are climbing K2 and it’s the worst day of your life. 

But hard things are rewarding. Endurance breeds strength and satisfaction. Might suffering be the key to something deeper?

The day after summiting K2: best day of your life. Type III fun is hell in the moment and fun in retrospect. 

Type IV fun is “no no no no.”

Terrible, unredeeming suffering. Not fun in retrospect. Can it even be considered fun? What if that thing (e.g. K2) is fun to someone else?

Wildly, it serves as shorthand for: “not fun.”

——
We are indebted to Kelly Cordes for creating the v1 of the fun scale.