It's not martial arts, it's survive. It was invented by the French.

Tip #32 - explore the playfulness within yourself - it's still there

This post is part of a series I’m writing from mid-June to the end of 2024 or whenever it ends, on things that helped me rebuild my confidence, sense of self, and increased my delight in my life after massive difficulty in multiple areas. For full details and post links to all 110 things, go to this post here.

Tip #32 - Explore the playfulness within yourself - it’s still there

I read this book called The Power of Play about a decade ago, give or take.

At that time the kids were younger and a lot of my time, the majority of my days was involved in their direct instruction, entertainment, engagement, and creating enriching activities. I think that’s a part of things I was good at.

It was tough sometimes, as anything you have to do for a long period of time becomes, to ccontinue and continue and continue. At times I had to remind myself, like take my face in my hands and say to myself someday my kids will know how to use a spoon on their own and will know how to use a toilet on their own and will have a vocuabulary to express themselves and will be able to articulate what they want and what they don’t want and why and someday they will not be this size and then there will be new things but now is now and now is not yet then.

And then I could make pictures out of stickers, test all the markers in the marker box together, go to the park again and lay out the blanket again and watch the the aristocats again while they fell asleep all heavy and glowy warm on me again...

Around this time give or take a little is when I read The Power of Play, which posits how essential to growth it is to be allowed to play around. It’s the basics of the scientific method – we fuck around and we find out.

We try things and we learn things.

We engage with the world and figure it out.

Essentially that’s what play is, for young kids and toddlers and teenagers and babies and all of us to varying degrees.

And so how do we, as adults, so often lose that ability to play? To be playful? To feel playful?

Obviously theres the limitations that come with aging, sometimes very real and a lot of the time very intangible and in our own heads.

Just try stuff.

With care, of course, just try stuff. That’s what it means.

Getting in touch with the younger you helps with this.

Do you remember how you’d spend the days after school in the 90’s? For me it was on something with wheels most of the time outside often with a dog and/or a friend and often ended with grass stains and new scars, and winded satisfied lungs. Dirty hands.

Often when I was a little older it was with art stuff. Drawing things and drawing things, cutting images out of magazines to make collages, taking pictures to make weird photography projects real, writing zines and covering the walls and the pages of my journals with pieces of things I had done or wanted.

That’s play also. A mashing up and cutting and pasting together to make something different. The for what isn’t as important, the process is the thing that expands the senses and helps provide an openness for the growth that we need.

For me, when I can have a creative outlet, play I guess where there’s not metric for success and no defined deliverables, I just get to create something I wanna do for fun, it does feel like opening the windows of brain time and that’s nice to do.

To get in touch with this I like having some projects that are just for me, for no other reason and no monetary value but my own fun and enjoyment and like side quests skill accumulation, playtime areas I want to explore.

It’s not wasted time to play.

I have been longboarding with my kids and they rollerblade and there’s not an end goal but to do it and figure out how to do it better a bit at a time and to have fun in the process.

I’m bedazzling a skull right now which sounds weird but is also fun and without any specific goal besides to do it. It’s just fun.

When I feel too cemented to the regimented and endless state of the administrative tasks of being an adult in this society and one with children and all the rest of it and need to feel some playfulness, I walk on the curbs of the places I’m at, safely of course.

I’ll sit in the sun and help my daughter make lego creations.

I’ll use up the end tubes of paint just to feel it on the brush and on the paper.

I’ll play.

On purpose.

I’ll look for leaves I like on the ground and ones that could be good for a crunch and in playing I’m opening up to invite a wondering - both an internal generating of wonder as in things to wonder about, and an internal wonder as in things to exclaim about and feel delight from the noticing of type of wonder.

And from playing it’s like the rest of my brain is off duty for a while. It can melt around and take it’s shoes off and I can play and later be like look what I made out of nothing. My brain pats me on the head for spending time playing and says thank you – this was time well spent and we needed it.

Play is essential for growth.

It’s essential for keeping the stretchy potential of your life and your visions and your imaginations.

What are you finding playful with in your life right now?

I hope there is something.

Perhaps this would be something to reflect about in your journal or during a night walk. Watch your shadow when the sun or the moon is angled to make one for you and see this echo of ourself.

Do something, try something, fuck around and find out something, for no purpose other than to explore it.

It’s recess baby, let’s go play tetherball.

ILYSM - Marian