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I would suggest that play is an essential part of life. But what is play? Or rather what is playful behaviour? Well to me playfulness in adults often begins as a state of mind (or if you will, in your thoughts.

A playful attitude is one that helps you to see things with a sparkling eye, a laugh on your lips, and delight in all that you can encounter. Playfulness is the joy of seeing something work for the first time, or taking pleasure from discovering an error in how you did something, and then understanding why. A smile is your partner as you take joy in the little discoveries, and sharing these discoveries with those around you.

Playfulness is sometimes irreverent, mostly joyful, and is similar to love. It's not about making straining effort, and being stressed out, but often when it comes to things you take delight in, you find yourself doing more work than you do when you straining and being serious. Playfulness is a state of relaxed intensity, where you find your creative juices roaring like a waterfall, and things seem almost to fall into place! This is the joy that comes from play; this is joy nigh personified!

But how can you apply the playful attitude to studying things, or doing work that you think sucks? Well there are a few approaches, many of which are reported and recorded in various knowledge claims.

Okay, basically start off remembering the feelings you have when you are doing something you really enjoy. (EG: Skiing, partying, playing music, dancing, and laughing, whatever you enjoy.) Take that feeling of joy, and then connect it with what you need to do. Then imagine the stuff you want to deal with and then link it with something silly or even personify it by linking it with a system/model or a place that is familiar to you.

Play is a part of mastering any skill. When you play, you are mentally relaxed, and yet receptive to so much at the same time. A relaxed person is able to do things better than a person who is tight like a clenched fist. If I remember correctly, the counsel to a practitioner of the martial arts, or to a person who engages in sports is something like this:

be in a relaxed state of readiness. Your stance should be such that you can move in any direction, and your muscles relaxed, with your mind alert. A clenched fist is slower than an open one, for a tightly clenched muscle needs to relax before it can move, and so slows you down.

This applies to work as well. Train hard, get the movements down, and then the actions themselves become engrained in your thoughts, and in your bodily movements. Then you cease to be an acolyte, and graduate to mastery of your chosen skill.

Written in December of 1999 in response to a friend's trouble with juggling a variety of responsibilities.
Written and © by Chris 1999

Site © by Chris, 2000