During the peak of Swarthmore honors studying as I attempted to manifest enjoying the process of Swarthmore honors while pulling an almost-all-nighter, a friend joked that it was “type 2 fun.” Type 2 fun is fun that is only realized in retrospect. It is most often discussed by backpackers and endurance athletes, who argue the most fulfilling fun hurts a little (or a lot) as you do it and becomes most “fun” afterwards.
As we joked about honors (and maybe Swarthmore in general) being type 2 fun we weren’t sure if it would be. One can only diagnose type 2 fun in retrospect. After completion, I can safely conclude that honors was type 2 fun. For some strange reason, I feel that it was fulfilling.
During the course of our discussions about honors, we discussed whether other sorts of activities were type 2 fun (ACL surgery, for example). This necessitated us looking for the other categories of type 3 (not fun in retrospect, but fun to tell stories about), and type 4 fun (not fun stories or in retrospect). I think by type 4, the typology has mostly lost its value.
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