Serious. Fun.

I was spelunking the web a couple days ago and ran across a blog talking about dogma. I didn't really understand what the author was trying to say. Sure I get the dogma is bad thing, I just didn't grok how his examples had much to do with dogma. In any case I was talking to a friend of mine about it and we got into an interesting discussion. Or at least I thought it was interesting.

We were chatting about the blog, what it might mean, the idea of situational appropriate responses and like that and we were sort of going in different directions. The crux of the conversation ended up resting on this statement I made.

If someone unintentionally goes over and has to swim, that's a serious situation.

My friend took exception to this and talked about how paddle sports are supposed to be fun and falling over is a part of the sport and, you know, if someone fell in soccer you'd grab their hand and help them up and no big deal 'cause that's part of it and like that. To which I explained that well, yes, paddling is supposed to be fun, falling over and out is pretty normal, as is helping folks back into their boat and like that. But it's still a serious circumstance. To which he explained that people fall out all the time, that we need to attract people to the sport and that saying something so common is a serious circumstance doesn't help in that regard and like that. So I got off the phone because obviously he was wrong (heh) and we weren't going to get anywhere.

Despite my conviction my friend was wrong I decided I better make sure he was wrong so I could rub it in later or avoid the conversation and acceptance of fault in the future. He'd go "hey, remember when you said it was serious when..." and I'd go, "Squirrel!". So I went to the internet and looked up serious. And I got this:

concerned with work or important matters rather than play or trivialities

Which I sent to my friend because he was wrong and I wanted to make sure that was clear. Because, face it, if someone needs a rescue that's what you do. You stop playing in the race, or talking about the relative merits of unit versus integration testing (I run with a sometimes odd crowd) and commence to rescuing. No "hang on Joe, I'll get you in a couple minutes" or "to the pub gents!". Nope, it's pretty much "hang on to your boat", "flip your boat", etc. You might laugh or take the piss a bit because, damnit, they're in the water and they have to take whatever you dish out just then. But still, serious. Right?

I think perhaps my friend got serious mixed up with dire. Here's the internet definition of dire:

desperate: fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless

I don't think I've ever been in a dire circumstance on the water. I ran out of wine once when I was camping on an island by myself and that was pretty desperate, but nothing that I can recall on the water.

It seems to me that things can be serious and fun. I'm pretty sure dire and fun don't go together. Not having any wine to go with a most excellent red beans and rice (with andouille!) was the opposite of fun.