On Frivolity

Being a silly sausage in a cold world

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It’s easy to forget that we weren’t born serious. We didn’t come out of the womb with a furrowed brow, stroking our chins and wringing our hands while muttering about the state of the economy.

24 hour news wasn't a thing in 90s Britain. Instead, we tootled about our days quite nonchalantly until the TV suddenly went black and a posh voice announced ‘This is the BBC News from London’. When you heard that bloke you knew shit was about to go down.

I have an odd memory of watching the quaint lunchtime gameshow ‘Call My Bluff’ with my grandad during the summer holidays. After enjoying a half hour of genteel comedy, the credits started to roll. Grandad switched over to ITV where a stern-sounding older gentleman disturbed our peace by announcing, rather forthrightly, ‘The Queen Mother has DIED.’ We didn’t have 24 hour news, but when the news came, they certainly didn't beat about the bush.

Continuous news ramped up in the UK post-9/11. Those born after this global watershed have only ever really known the incessant news cycle, the insidious merry-go-round of divisive opinions published for clicks, and arguably, they have never truly known a ‘slow news day’. Imagine from the moment you took your first breath you’ve been bombarded with the hard truths of the world mixed with enough Peppa Pig to make it somewhat palatable.

We are not born serious, we have seriousness thrust upon us. It’s wearisome and, dare I say it for fear of sounding flippant, boring.

Like any human with a basic level of empathy, I cry at the state of this burning hellscape in which we live. You try to do what you can do to help, or what you think might ‘help’; the things that are within your means- a donation, a show of solidarity, whilst also trying to keep your own life floating along the treacherous seas of a capitalist system. Those who are drowning try to help those on the ocean floor, while those who can afford helicopters wave at the plebs from above.

Because while the world is burning down, we are told to earn, earn, earn. Produce stuff, or else what are you good for? It really is no surprise that we are all experiencing differing levels of exhaustion resulting from the pressure of simply existing. The cost of living isn’t just a financial crisis, it is an everything crisis. Exponential growth leads to exponential stress, as well as other much more undesirable outcomes.

It might sound crass, like I’m putting my head in the sand and going full scale delusional, but I long for the naiveté of childhood. I don’t mean that I want to be ignorant. Far from it; I still want to be engaged with what is going on around us, because if you aren’t, that’s how they win. I just want the option to escape for a bit every now and then. It is possible to do both, but it takes practice.

You need laughter and lightness in your life. That’s what art is for. In fact, I’m starting to suspect that art is merely ‘play’ rebranded for adults.

At what age does it stop being acceptable for you to jump in puddles?

In supermarkets, I regularly act on a compulsion to push the trolley hard and lean forwards, lifting my legs off the ground to slide across the aisle. I’m flying past the tinned peas! I have a job and bills to pay, weeeeee! Every time I do this I grow less and less bothered about what the other shoppers might be thinking (I think if I saw someone else doing similar I would be quick to judge that they were being inappropriate and not giving the sacred Lidl the reverence it deserves. Then I’d snap out of it and tell myself to get a grip.)

How to be frivolous? Do something for its own sake. Pull faces in the mirror, write a crappy limerick, make up a song about the word ‘bacon’. Give yourself some of the lightness we have lost.

It doesn’t have to mean anything. You don’t need to monetise it. You don’t need to make an Instagram account or a brand for it. None of this needs to ‘do’ anything. It doesn’t need a purpose or a function. Spend time being idle. Sit upside down on the sofa (particularly if you have ADHD, it’s very on-brand for us). Wear a cushion on your head like it’s a fancy hat. Use the title ‘Reverend’ when signing up to something online (for years I sent my Nan birthday and Christmas cards and on the envelope I would write ‘Dame’ or ‘Professor’ before her name.)

Not only is the world serious, but neurodivergents are regularly called out for either being too serious (in my case it’s what I look like when I am unmasked and exhausted that gets me into the biggest pickle), or way too serious (ADHD and enthusiasm is apparently ‘too much’ for some people. These people need to cheer up.)

Masking autism on 0% battery

You aren’t too much or not enough. You’re allowed to just be, and it’s all the better if sometimes we laughed at the silliness of everything. I know anecdotally from my autistic friends that 99% of the time we are not even being overly serious, it’s just our body language or tone of voice that conveys a sense of seriousness to neurotypicals. Perhaps they need to listen to what we say a bit more closely.

I live by the rule of ‘ABD’. Always Be Daft.

Daftness is my antidote to the constant whirring of the world. Allow yourself to be silly and light. Let your guard down a bit if you feel safe. Frivolity arguably requires some level of vulnerability. If you’re too embarrassed to be silly in public, and many of us don’t feel safe to be like that in front of others, then be daft at home, by yourself.

I’m of the opinion that buttoned up bores can’t be truly frivolous. You’ll find that these are the same people who want exponential growth, or the people who want to disturb your peace after a quiet game of Call My Bluff.

Imagine life as all panic and no disco - it’s not for me.

Always Be Daft

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Take it easy,

Ren