The Art of Play
Just playing around © W. Lee Baker
I know, a misleading title for what I am going to say. Now that we are all grown up and know how to behave, it may be time to remember some simpler times and some of the playful joys forgotten. We may not all start carrying a ball and jacks or jump rope, but there is more back there than that.
There was a very primary satisfaction that we probably had when we were children. Then someone told you that was not going to be good enough for growing up. In the process of growing up, we learned a lot of things that we were told would work better. By others. So we adopted those ideas of what was better, or appropriate, or useful. Their ideas. Then we spent the next period of time, maybe decades, striving with those tools and lessons. A lot of those lessons produced successes, yet those successes are measured on a different scale. Everyone has heard the admonition about money, that it doesn’t keep you warm at night, or create real joy. I heard one saying, that “Money isn’t everything, but it sure soothes the mind.”
There is a point of attention here, remembering those things that we might have found early in life that were really fun, natural, and deeply satisfying.