Funpain

Everyone likes to have fun. In fact, most people like to have fun so much that many times, they're willing to endure a certain amount of pain just to have it. I am one of those people.

But not all funpain (I'm allowed to coin new words on my own blog, right?) is created equal. Let's take a look at the different types.

"Comes with the Territory"

This is when you know you're going to be hurting before you embark on an activity, and then you do it anyway. Different people seem to have different limits for the amount of this kind of pain they'll endure. For example, some people will voluntarily run marathons. That's 26.2 miles. Of running. I will always call those people insane.

"The name marathon comes from the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek messenger. The legend states that he was sent from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon. It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping and burst into the assembly, exclaiming "Νενικήκαμεν" (Nenikékamen, 'We have won') before collapsing and dying."

-- Wikipedia

At the same time, I will voluntarily spend three days of my spring break snowboarding on the icy trails of Vermont - back before I knew how to switch from heel to toe - pretty much getting owned (factoid: not knowing how to ride toe-side really tortures the legs after one day). Many people would call that insane.



This was not a posed photo. For a rundown on the difference between posed and candid photos, please refer to the previous entry.

"Occupational Hazard"

Here, the participant endures pain not because he/she agreed to it beforehand, but because he/she accepted it as a risk that simply needed to be accepted.

For example, when you go to the beach, you just accept that there is a very, very small chance that there might be a shark in the water. Anyone who has watched Jaws will tell you this is not always easy to do. You also accept the slightly greater chance that a wave might blindside you and fling you onto rocks that incidentally aren't all that friendly.



Do you still go to the beach? Absolutely.

"Having So Much Fun it Hurts"

Then there's this type of funpain, where you push yourself to play to such extremes that every part of you just hurts. Sometimes this means literally staying up all night and hanging out (although there will always be disputes as to who actually stayed awake and who drifted off):



Or maybe it means camping out on someone's front lawn (which is more or less equivalent to staying up all night, except outside and less comfortably), and then making a one-day Vegas trip the next day.




Or maybe it means eating as many ribs as you can on all-you-can-eat night just to see how many you can put away:



When you start to question what the heck you were thinking when you did that, you know you're having this kind of funpain.


It is probably not a coincidence that I'm involved in all of these. So let's play!