Comfort vs. Fun: Knowing Where You Stand

On vacation, Ian and I were swimming in the lake while everyone else had gone back to the cottage to dry off. Ian was largely guiding the process, and, at his direction, the two of us swam out to a raft, about sixty feet from shore, and lay down on our stomachs on the plastic pseudo-grass, sunning ourselves in the late afternoon glow. Meanwhile, Amy was rounding up the troops for the all-important trip to the local library, where they reportedly had a pirate's ship climbing structure and other diversions. [Personally, I can't imagine anything more dismal, on vacation, than visiting a local library...]

Ian was rather torn between swimming back to shore and drying off to join the Library caravan, or hanging back with Daddy on the raft, getting more sun, and taking our time to join the others. When we finally got back to the cottage, I told him that he could take a shower or wait to do so, but if he did take a shower, we might not get to the library before closing time. At that moment, Ian made a proclamation of compelling clarity, both about himself and about the contrasting priorities in human nature:

Opting to take a shower, at the risk of missing the library, he explained:

"I'd rather be comfortable than have fun."

This is beautiful especially because it's so true. Ian has a personality that dramatically favors comfort over any kind of gratification. In this regard, he is not unlike his godfather, who had overwhelmingly the same instinct. By contrast, he differs radically from his younger brother, Daniel, and Daniel's own paternal namesake, who intensely prefer pleasure to comfort, and might not even have much use for comfort in the first place.

I believe that humanity is largely broken up into the rather-be-comfortable-than-have-fun camp and the "Woooppeeee!" Camp, with a few straddlers in between. I am very grateful to Ian for highlighting this essential distinction in impulses, and I'm very impressed that he could articulate the "Comfort" manifesto in but a few words, at the tender age of six.

(July 31, 2010)