Appetite for Destruction: The Analog Era of Fun

You having a good time? Are you having fun?

I didn't realize I'd have to answer this question so often—at concerts, at clubs, whenever things get loud and I inevitably end up with my resting bitch face on. But why is it so important to us that the other person is having fun? Why does it matter so much that we're enjoying the same thing together?

I think the idea is that fun is supposed to be shared. When someone asks if you're having fun, they want you to enjoy the same thing they do. But there's also subtle societal pressure in that question—what if you don't? Does that mean you don't like your friends? If you say no, does that mean that they won't like you? Sometimes I feel like when someone asks if I'm having fun, I should probably say yes even if I'm not, because my face apparently doesn't give that impression to people.

The truth is, my version of fun has become a lot more nuanced, a lot more unique, and a lot more... weird. Fun is relative, especially when you're getting older.

For some people, fun means exerting yourself beyond what a regular person would do—it's Type II fun, the fun that the climbing bros feel after they stop by for a Big Mac after scaling whatever rock they found at Yosemite. For others, it's spending all day at a spa getting pampered with deep cleanse scalp treatments and sea kelp, Himalayan salt full-body exfoliation. When I think about fun, I find myself looking back at moments when I experienced pure joy, and I realize a lot of my recent posts have been quite serious—meant for a more mature audience engaging in introspective work that's necessary but not that ‘fun’.

So in the spirit of balance, I wanted to write something more lighthearted this week—about doing things that don't necessarily make logical sense but bring you joy anyway.

For me, fun food is about unexpected combinations—like discovering that peanut butter and jelly actually work together (one time I was telling my local Hong Kong friend about peanut butter and jelly and she looked horrified at why this would even be a combination), or realizing that chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs taste better than regular ones for no other reason than you can eat the head off the dino nuggets and then make new Frankenstein dino shapes. There's pure joy in creation, in trying new combos that shouldn't work but somehow do.

I remember making my go-to gochujang buttered pasta for friends recently. It's pantry easy, as in, all you have to do is just look through your pantry to see if it's there and BAM! Emeril Lagasse, you have a great meal—you just need gochujang, butter, spaghetti, and garlic—but it's fun because it's fascinating to watch people face something they have never faced before - the unfamiliar. There's a little sadistic pleasure in watching friends scrunch their faces slightly when you put something unfamiliar in front of them, then watching their faces change as they taste it.

But here's what I've realized: creation is fun, but so is doing the exact opposite of what everyone expects—or even opposite of who you once were. Sometimes the most fun comes from destruction, from breaking away from your old patterns. Maybe you were always the person who followed recipes exactly, and now you're throwing random ingredients together. Maybe you used to be precious about presentation, placing edible flowers with tiny surgeon tweezers, and now you're all about the chaos menu—pouring root beer directly into your pint of vanilla ice cream with crushed-up Cocoa Puffs and calling it a sundae.

This dish embodies both impulses: it's creating something new (practical fusion of Korean and Italian) while also destroying the idea that you need expensive ingredients or complex techniques to impress people. That half-used container of gochujang and leftover butter come together to make something that looks sophisticated but requires minimal effort. It's perfect for parties—easy to make, transportable, unique enough to impress people, and there's even a great YouTube video explaining how to do it properly.

The act of destruction—of your old cooking habits, of traditional expectations, of taking yourself too seriously—is pretty damn fun too.

I genuinely enjoy watching people cook and have fun doing it. There's something infectious about culinary joy. I think that's exactly why cooking shows work—people want to see happy chefs making something delicious, and that enthusiasm is contagious.

When I cook, I listen to music that probably surprises people. I remember going through a serious Guns N' Roses phase in middle school. Picture a suburban Asian kid trying to be edgy and cool—that was me on the school bus listening to my CD album on a secondhand CD player when I first heard "Welcome to the Jungle." Those guitar riffs were a revelation. The sound was electrifying in a way that playing clarinet in eighth-grade symphony band definitely was not.

A woodwind instrument within a middle school band was meant to blend in, to "elevate the piece," but Axl Rose and Slash? No, they were stars. They were about attention, they were trying to be gritty, and they damn well wanted you to know it.

I like range. I like things that are polar opposites of each other. I remember during my middle school stage of discovery, I'd go to the public library and check out the most random combination of things. One day I walked out with Appetite for Destruction, a KISS album, and Paradise Lost by John Milton. Talk about range—I was living in the analog era of the Wikipedia rabbit hole, just following my curiosity wherever it led. Now that was fun.

Needless to say, KISS and John Milton didn't stick with me, but goddamn, Axl Rose did.

I knew every word to every song on that album—all 53 minutes of it. There was something about rock music that felt like pure chaotic energy. I don't think the world has ever seen a band quite like Guns N' Roses during their Appetite for Destruction era.

I love that album title: "Appetite for Destruction." It suggests having an appetite for something, and destruction—because sometimes you need to destroy things to build new ones. Maybe I'm being pseudo-intellectual, trying to find deeper meaning where there isn't any, but it sounds profound enough. Sometimes you just want to blow stuff up, and that's fun.

Blowing things up is amazing. Destroying things can be amazing. I'm not advocating for violence, but I do see the catharsis in it—doing things that are aggressive and physical and breaking stuff down. There's something therapeutic about being a little less serious, a little bit more chaotic and a lot more badassery.

What I love about polar opposites is how they can both be fun in completely different ways. Building something up gives you one kind of satisfaction, while tearing it down gives you another. Creating order feels good, but so does embracing chaos. Being thoughtful and introspective has its place, but sometimes you just want to crank up Guns N' Roses and metaphorically blow stuff up.

I hope you can look into your own life and think about what kind of metaphorical stuff you want to blow up. Sometimes destruction is just a fun time. Building things is great, but there's also amazing catharsis in tearing things down to make space for something new. Both impulses can coexist, and maybe that's what makes life interesting—having the range to appreciate creation and destruction, order and chaos, John Rose and Axl Milton.

Savoring this moment with you,

Kevin L