A video about the potential pitfalls of excess.
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You only need to observe people at play, especially children, to get a sense of what it is about.
In general it seems fair to say that at its foundation play is the ability to model experience without having to have that actual experience – in particular, you can explore practically any situation in a way that exposes you to a level of danger, risk or threat that at any time you can step back from.
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The American Satirist Tom Lehrer had a story about his philosopher friend Hen3ry (He spelt his name with a 3 because he was such an individualist) and the words of wisdom that he shared just before they took him away to the Massachusetts state home for the bewildered.
“Life is like a sewer:” He said.
“What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.”
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Do what you are asked, get a reward.
Do what you have been told not to and get punished. This is extrinsic motivation. It comes from an outside source.
For most of us reward and punishment was, and is, a significant part of life. It formed the foundation of how we were motivated in the education (some might say indoctrination) systems that we went through, and then, by extension, we experienced (or still experience as an integral part of the the industrialised work of work. The stark fact is that the majority of people are in work to earn money – not as an expression of their own inner light, their own potential, or their own truth.
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Student accommodation. Northern England. Gas heater on full blast. Mugs of tea. Small plates of toast on every surface.
Crammed into the tiny space were five women and me.
It was my birthday. Somewhere in my mid twenties. The room smelt only the way a room full of young women in their dressing gowns can. We had all been smiling a lot. There were two gifts remaining to be shared.
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If there is an art to showing up it is in the ‘willingness to show up’ rather than exercising the power of ones will. It is about the willingness to endure rather than forcing ourselves to endure. Relaxing into discomfort that comes with challenge has a different quality to gritting ones teeth.
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As well as saying that all relating is relating to life, we can make some provisional distinctions to help refine our focus into specific areas of life – as and where might benefit us. In these articles I have invited you to engage in a more intimate way with the environment you inhabit (The World), other people (Relationships) and today I would like to invite you to relate in a more intimate way with yourself.
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Connection is a deep root that taps the source from which well being is drawn.
Connection to oneself – having a healthy relationship with our experience of life – is essential in this. Also, we do not live in isolation either. For all but the hermits among us, we live in relationship to other people. Dislocation from others when not chosen can lead to much sadness, and even distress.
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How we relate, to ourselves, to the world, and to the people and creatures we share it with, informs how we adapt to life.
The better able we are to adapt to life, the better quality of life we generally end up having. Challenges are met, obstacles are overcome, and opportunities get recognised and taken.
The more our basic needs are met the more we can go about actualising our potential. Remembering that ‘actualising your potential’ could cover anything from creating a business empire, to building a house, to raising a family, to just sitting peacefully in an ancient forest.
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Our ability to adapt to life is shaped by how well we can relate to it.
How intimate we are with our experience of life the better able we are to make choices that will serve us.
This series of articles contains practical invitations to explore life in potentially more intimate ways.
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