When I was a kid, my dad came home one day fizzing like a shaken soda. At the dinner table, he revealed the source of his excitement: Ben & Jerry's was having a contest to invent a new flavor, and the prize was a lifetime supply of free ice cream!
Our eyes widened, and we began to salivate, imagining a freezer full of Cherry Garcia, our favorite flavor.
We immediately got into brainstorming. My dad proposed strawberry rhubarb (very him), I lobbied hard for peanut butter banana toast (very me), but then my brother suggested… root beer float flavor. We went quiet and exchanged conspiratorial glances. This was it. Winner winner, ice cream dinner.
In the following days, our kitchen was transformed into a laboratory filled with the sweet aroma of vanilla ice cream churning and the earthy, slightly medicinal smell of root beer, counters cluttered with measuring cups, and a freezer packed to the brim with various concoctions.
While Root Beer Float ice cream was simple in concept, it was fiendishly tricky in execution. We wanted the smoothness of vanilla contrasted against the medicinal, herbaceous root beer flavor, with surprising pops of carbonation. We spent weeks and weeks perfecting our recipe.
We froze root beer, but it turned icy, losing its bold flavor. We tried making a root beer-flavored syrup to swirl in, but, though it had the punch we wanted, it lacked the effervescence of soda. We even tried making homemade Pop Rocks but realized they fizz out when added to the ice cream. We were undeterred and kept going, attempt after attempt, in search of the perfect concoction.
In the fun of the process, we lost the plot, forgot about the prize, and in the end we never submitted an entry. Our interest fizzled, we went back to school, and the contest became a sparkling summer memory.
Years later, I was at Ben & Jerry's with a friend when I spotted "Root Beer Float My Boat" as a limited-edition flavor on the menu. My heart nearly stopped. I ordered it immediately, took one bite, and... it was all wrong. Too sweet, not enough bite, zero carbonation magic. Our imperfect attempts had been better than this one that made the menu.
I went home and told my family about this tragic ice cream injustice, and despite the sting of the lifetime supply of ice cream that got away, we were flooded with fond memories of that summer of kitchen experiments and sticky determination.
Later, recounting the story to a friend, I decided to research the contest details. Did I get a surprise! Turns out, my dad had gotten his wires VERY crossed and it wasn't a contest for creating your own flavor at all—it was an essay contest and the prize winner got to be the new CEO of Ben & Jerry's. (The runner-up essayists got a lifetime supply of ice cream.)
We had spent months perfecting ice cream recipes for a contest that called for essays. The absurdity of all of us enthusiastically running towards an imaginary goalpost is very on brand for my family.
Though we didn’t succeed in the way we initially wanted to, I still got a prize. I won the joy of the process, the thrill of getting lost in my own world of tinkering, fueled by play. I got to see that "failure"—a batch that was too icy or not fizzy enough—wasn't an end but a stepping stone to the next jubilant attempt.
We live in a culture obsessed with achievement and productivity, where side quests and delightful diversions are generally frowned upon. Everything must have a point, a purpose, a measurable outcome, or else why bother? How many passions have we abandoned because they didn't lead anywhere 'productive'?
I sometimes struggle with wanting all my life efforts to be "for something," and judging myself for the fizzled quests, the contests lost, the half-baked attempts. But then I think about that summer of experimenting and I'm reminded that not every pursuit needs to be seen to an end, an enjoyable escapade can be just that.
I think about my summer of root beer floating often—it's a core memory that reminds me that in the messy laboratory of life, sometimes the most beautiful thing you can do is spend months chasing your own wild interests, getting absolutely nowhere, and yukking it up the whole time.
The next time I ask “what's the point?” as I’m doing something I enjoy, I will answer myself with the giddy fizz of a shaken soda: “The point is play. The point is joy. The point is a meandering diversion that makes you feel connected and alive.”
What meandering diversion is calling to you right now? What would you chase if the only point was play?
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