“Never was anything great achieved without danger.” Niccolo Machiavelli
“Triviality is evil, triviality, that is, in the form of consciousness and mind that adapts itself to the world as it is, that obeys the principle of inertia. And this principle of inertia truly is what is radically evil.” ― Theodor W. Adorno, Metaphysics: Concept and Problems
What if I told you that insanity was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years... only to be told to get lost at the end of it all? Ending up in some retirement community... hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the bathroom in time. Wouldn’t you consider that to be insane? Garland Greene in Con Air.
This section addresses the dimensions of balance: risk, play, and adventure.
Risk: Safe risk-taking: an ontological sense of security in one’s surroundings and oneself that supports productive and adventurous risks for citizenship.
Play: Playful playfulness: where games and play are used in the pursuit of the good life.
Adventure: Spontaneous routines: routines that enable adventure.
Gamify life. Psychologist McGonigall has made the sociological observation that the allure of gaming worlds reveals something about how society falls short (2012). There is not enough play or gaming in society outside of actual games and gambling. McGonigall argues that you can gamify your life by having an epic goal, an avatar, enemies, allies, missions, upgrades, tools, and power, ups (McGonigall, 2012). For real, life gamification, you need to find truly epic goals, which can be complex problems. To design your gaming experience well, you need to set yourself challenges at the right level to rack up wins and build momentum (Collins, 2004). Gamification is a cognitive and emotional state characterized by a penchant for challenges (McGonigall, 2012). Challenges are embraced and become a positive experience. If the game is well, designed, players can experience “acute optimism,” feeling that they can overcome ever, greater challenges in life.
It is important that this be eudaimonic gamification, not the hedonistic kind that dominates society. Adopt a playful approach when discussing various social issues, rather than taking it as an insult if someone disagrees with you.
Gamify life. Play is less focused on the competitive aspect. Play involves more spontaneity and make, believe for the sake of humor. Illich views creative, playful camaraderie as an ideal (1973). Create creative communities where you and others make things together.
Engaging with culture is a way to participate in others’ play, or to experience the end result of their play in the form of a finished book.
Seek out the “serious” play found in challenging pursuits such as complex culture or complex problem, solving. It is a form of play in which one tries, in various ways, to solve or understand what lies before them.
Turn life into a carnival. Carnivals and celebrations have long been a central practice for people to experience something beyond the ordinary, the carnivalesque, where spontaneity and festivity can emerge. Bring the carnival spirit into civic and personal struggles. Playfulness allows people to relax and makes the stakes seem lower. The focus shifts away from the intense competition that a debate can entail, which is itself a form of game. Through play, a more relaxed approach can emerge, while still taking the matter seriously.
Turn life into an adventure. Gamification and adventure are very closely related, especially when gamification is aimed at “epic goals” (McGonigall, 2012). “Adventure, ification” means connecting with a heroic dimension, particularly when something is at stake in life, especially something beyond oneself, ideally rooted in a civic struggle. There are various ways to create pseudo, adventures that are actually preplanned, clichéd, “touristified” (tourism and sporting events) (Berglund, 2026; Taleb, 2012), and destructive. There are various activities that people fill their lives with that can, for a while, help one avoid the feeling of boredom: various small projects, such as unnecessarily renovating a house, or small projects stemming from various dramas in one’s personal struggles. But eventually, boredom will catch up with us, or if we’re not aware of it, that’s what we’re feeling. It arises clearly at work, where there’s a prevailing narrative that the work is repetitive, and so on. But relationships are often boring because the people in the relationship aren’t engaged in an adventure. This is evident in the relationship falling silent, there isn’t much to say. This suggests that one is standing outside the dialogue of civilization, where there is so much to communicate about. This sense of adventure can be found by getting involved in civic activism, where there are real adventures for everyone to take part in.
Adventurization can start small. Invite people over to your home. Take the initiative to organize more get, togethers. Do something new. Do something that requires courage. Taking up a sport can be a start but cannot be the end of adventurization. Those who run marathons are engaged in pseudo, adventures where enormous effort leads to no positive outcome for the rest of society. Taking contrary actions is another way to bring more adventure into your life. Another way is to dare to meet people as they are, rather than hiding behind small talk or polite distance.
Start new projects. Projects are spaces where we can embark on larger endeavors. Adventures can never be short. The adventures we experience in movies and on social media are too brief to be true adventures; they don’t take us out of our daily routines. Longer, term projects, goals, and endeavors are what can develop into adventures. There is something greater that takes us out of the monotonous routine of everyday life while simultaneously giving meaning to the present.
Courage. Part of modernity is the tendency to plan and overthink (Paulsen, 2020). Roland Paulsen observes that our thinking, and often overthinking, is a consequence of society being structured in such a way that so much can be planned (2020). With agriculture, our own careers, and openness about the life choices available to us, there is a sense of freedom. This could be an opportunity for our own adventure, since we are not bound by strict conventions requiring us to stay in one place or within one profession. But what happens is that we can lock ourselves in and become cautious in order to minimize risk, because we see so many mistakes that can be made. This causes life to shrink. Dostoevsky wrote that thinking is a disease. This can certainly be taken to extremes, and it’s easy to fall into that trap when there are high expectations that we should think and plan. Courage allows us to learn along the way from the challenges we take on. Throw yourself into things and experiment instead of staying stuck at the planning table.
Reading. Reading is an activity that allows us to tackle larger projects. Through books, we can encounter much more information. There’s room for us to have many profound experiences. We can gain in, depth knowledge of topics that short clips can’t convey. Through reading, we can tap into someone’s thoughts that have been marinated and refined over several years, distilled for us into the clearest ideas that author could produce. It becomes even more powerful when reading is done to learn something about the world that’s connected to various pursuits or vocations.
Wildness. Henry David Thoreau wrote:
We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and un, unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable.
“Wildification” in a sociological sense means seeking out the wild, the unfamiliar, and the unusual in the social realm. This can be found in the cracks of the ordinary, where the cement has begun to crack, where weeds have started to push through the perfectly mowed lawn. “Wildification” is a metaphor for finding one’s own path that has not yet been traveled. Today, that path of one’s own may involve revisiting old trails, ones that haven’t been walked in a long time and have taken on a new perspective. These journeys along old trails can be undertaken through one’s own reading. The wild emerges as one begins to create a personal reading catalog that is unique to oneself. When you don’t follow a specific curriculum but instead follow your curiosity and what’s needed for the tasks you face on your adventure. “Wildification” means seeking out what is rougher and less aestheticized, designed, or gentrified.
Strive for meaningful danger. Nietzsche wrote that
“Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit, and forces us to be strong.”
“The secret to reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from existence is: to live dangerously!”
Danger can thus be seen as a resource for discovering our strength. Many people squander danger on meaningless risks and hazards, where the danger cannot lead to much personal development beyond the lesson not to repeat exactly what they did. Adventure usually involves a degree of danger. If there is no danger or risk, nothing at stake, it’s hard to call it an adventure.
The flâneur. The flâneur stands in stark contrast to the tourist (Taleb, 2012; Simmel, 1971). The flâneur embraces adventure and is open to the unexpected and unplanned. The flâneur makes room for the unplanned. The city becomes a place for adventure; social encounters form the foundation of that adventure. Adventure is thus fundamentally social and derives its forms, contours, content, and degree of intensity from the social interactions, practices, and discourses that exist in society.
Do something new. Many people go week after week without learning or doing anything new. The same old routine, followed by the same old thoughts. People need the support of new activities to bring new ideas into their lives.
Self, discipline techniques. Focus on a key habit that can spread throughout your life, generating emotional energy and a fresh start. Read if you’re in school, exercise, etc.; go for a walk; participate in a social activity every week.
Routinization and ritualization. Routinization as a concept in sociology is best known from Weber’s phrase “the routinization of charisma.” Here, routinization is used more broadly to refer to the process of building a habit that establishes various routines guiding people in their daily lives. Routines are central to a meaningful life. They are necessary for ontological security (Giddens, 1991), and it is a recurring theme that great achievements, breakthroughs, and creativity arise from the habit of working frequently and continuously, as seen, for example, in the lives of Nietzsche or Darwin (Chambliss, 1989; Collins, 2000). For example, the routine of entering a state of deep focus is central to creating something new (Newport, 2016). Routine is thus fundamentally linked to creativity.
Safe risk-taking
Civic risk-taking. What is the difference between civic risk-taking and cliché, taking? Civic risk-taking involves entering the public debate and risking being wrong. To do this, one must strive to grasp the complexity of various social issues. Civic risk-taking is, above all, various forms of political action, engaging in the civic struggle where there is a risk of not winning, and of failing to make things better for oneself and others. Civic risk-taking can also be pursued through projects and entrepreneurship centered on the common good.
Take small risks and build on momentum. Test things out on a small scale to generate gains and boost emotional energy (Collins, 2004). For example, talk to people on public transportation or in public spaces. Take multiple chances. Work hard toward meaningful, epic goals. Expose yourself to chance. Experiment.
Partial victim. We can view ourselves as victims to a certain extent, but if we allow that self, image to be cultivated too strongly, both individually and collectively, it will create problems. Assuming the role of a victim also diminishes the sense of agency we attribute to ourselves; if we see ourselves too much as victims, we reduce our own agency. However, it’s usually beneficial to view oneself as a partial victim in every situation, because this leads us to recognize that we have partial agency. We are partly victims of circumstances, but we can do something about it, especially if we can change certain key aspects of those circumstances.
Ontological security exercises (Giddens, 1991). Rituals for security as coping mechanisms in everyday life. What should these be? The positive, risk orientation heuristic (Furedi, 2019). Don’t give in to fear; this is often overemphasized (Furedi, 2019).
Behavioral experiments to try: Do something you’re a little afraid of. Do something you’re very afraid of. Choose a purpose beyond yourself that forces you to be brave in different ways. Positive risk orientation is strengthened when there is a purpose beyond yourself. Everyone knows this: we can be braver when someone is in immediate danger.
Reflect on times when the risks you’ve taken have affected you and others, both negatively and positively. How can you incorporate more of the risk-taking that has been positive for you and others into your life? It could be speaking your mind at a work meeting, or taking the initiative to start a friendship or a romantic relationship.