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How to Recover the Fun of Playfulness Photo by Val Ayres
Are you playful?
Playfulness is fun part of life that we tend to mislay as
adults. In our culture there is anexpectation that children should
play, but adults must be serious. Personally, I think being adultis
highly overrated.
When I planned this post, I wanted to write about the fact that
we learn through playing, that werecover from stress though
playing, that it s a spiri tual activity, and other serious matter.
But the
post wouldn t let itself be written like that. It seemed to sit
down and refuse to budge.
It reminded me of my favourite childhood dog: a huge, sweet,
black, long-haired Newfoundlandcalled Nana. She was so in love with
water that she would sink down into every puddle, regallywaving her
feathered tail. Nana had a peculiar habit which my brother George
and I exploitedwhenever my father had visitors we didn t like (he
was an MP and saw a lot of his consti tuents athome).
We would muster our best behaviour and say: Would you like to
take our nice dog for a walk?
Then we would wave goodbye as the visitor walked down the road
with a reluctant Nana in tow.We d play innocently in the front
garden, all th e while keeping a gleeful eye out. Not fiveminutes
later the guest would reappear. This time Nana would forge ahead at
a fast trot while thevisitor, desperately clutching the lead, would
fly behind like a kite. Face red and hair disheveled,the visitor
would tell us that Nana suddenly lay down like an inert heffalump
as soon as shereached the edge of the forest. We d feign
astonishment, She just lay down and you couldn tmove her? Oh, how
strange! Of course we knew that she always did this with strange
rs. All
pushing and pulling was in vain until the walker headed back
home.
This post behaved exactly like Nana. It lay down and refused to
be written in an objective,informative and thoroughly serious way.
So now I have let go of control and am letting the postwrite
itself. In fact, I am doing exactly what we have to do to in order
to encourage playfulness:we have to let go of control, be personal
instead of objective, fall in love with love the trivialinstead of
pursuing the grand, and meander instead of going for the straight
line.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/valayres/503298615/http://www.flickr.com/photos/valayres/503298615/http://www.flickr.com/photos/valayres/503298615/
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Many lose their natural playfulness in adulthood
Why? I think its because we adults tend to become bumptious. We
project a serious self-imageand want others to believe it. That s
why there is something you need to d o if you want torecover your
playfulness:
Get rid of your good reputation
I work hard at countering my good reputation. I achieved a
break-through a few years ago when Iwas still working as a
psychotherapist as well as teaching Zen. At a dance party my
partnerDavid and I were having fun. I was in a skimpy red dress and
we were dancing a raunchy salsa.Later I heard that two women
sitting at a table were watching us. One of them shook her headand
said, That s my therapist. The other sighed in sympa thy and put
her head in her hands,saying: It s my Zen teacher. My reputation
was gloriously and irreparably damaged!
If you want to get rid of your good reputation, do something
absurd. Take some young friendsand all dress up as your favourite
book characters. Walk around town where you are sure to meet
people you know. Respond to them only in character! Join a drama
society and take up a funnyrole, sell made-to- measure poems at a
market stall, or form a wacky society. I ve just invitedthree other
s troppy women to the inaugural meeting of an organisation called,
Society for theFurtherance of Subservience. Maybe I could become a
subservience coach , what do youthink?
Play and laughter are bedfellows
When we laugh we forget ourself. All our precious ideas of who
we are fall away for a moment.When we poke gentle fun at ourselves,
all self- importance disappears. That s where play andspirituality
converge. Tao is an ancient word for a spiritual path. To forget
oneself and get lost inthe present is a spiritual state of being.
Both play and meditation can help us taste the freedom of
being present.
