Back From The Edge

When I was an undergrad I took an Intro to Psych class. At one point the professor stated that he was not sure when childhood ended and adulthood began. He suggested, however, it had to do with snow. Actually it had to do with how a person responds to snow. We are a child when we see a snow storm and respond ‘Cool’ and think of days off of school, sled riding, snow forts, and snowball fights. We become an adult, he suggested, when we look at snow and respond ‘Oh, $#!^’ and think of shoveling the driveway, being late for work, slow traffic, and all manner of inconvenience. Not very empirical, but in the intervening thirty years I have come to see the wisdom in his assessment. As George Bernard Shaw brilliantly stated it “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

I was reminded of this story as a read a blog post from MyShrink.com. The post covers a wide variety of aspects related to playfulness such as:

• Playfulness: you can’t fake it.
• Playfulness is a sign of emotional health
• Signs of Playfulness
• Increasing Playfulness
• Not everyone appreciates the value of playfulness

It is a great post and I enjoyed it very much. Please, do yourself a favor and head on over to MyShrink.com and give this posting a read. I think you’ll be glad you did.

I don’t post very often, but I couldn’t resist this weeks topic!  As soon as Michael told me we’d be all about play and fun, I immediately thought of my “play guru”, Sark!  Here’s a quote from her book, Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People, and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day:

“Inside” Children

Inside each of us are the children we were at each developmental stage.

With regard to our creative dreams, these inside children can prevent us from living them by “acting out” in order to try to get our attention. Your inner 5-year-old is not going to patiently wait as you learn intricate metalworking techniques or study impressionist painting. Yet, your inner 10-year-old may be perfectly suited to learn and observe new skills.

What’s really needed is parenting of these inside children so that we bring them to age-appropriate activities.”
— Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

The words ‘play’ and ‘fun’ don’t occur at all in this wonderful quote, but that’s what she’s saying to me.

What do you think of when you hear the word “play”?

Wiffle ball with your 6-year-old in the back yard?

The latest Xbox game?

Sudoku?

They’re certainly playful, but are they FUN?

I’m learning that I like play that contains elements of creativity, imagination and inspiration. I have the most fun when I let my inner five-year-old remind me how amazing it felt to learn and experiment.

I remember how much I loved finger painting when I was in kindergarten. I bet I’d still like it.

I’m gonna take my five year old self for a walk and let her look under rocks for cool bugs, take home whichever ones she wants, imitate the birds and then let her finger paint them when she gets home.

Sounds like fun to me!

I follow the quote hash on Twitter as closely as I can. As I was exploring the theme of fun, I encountered a dearth of quotes on fun, playfulness, play, and the like. So, I went in search of quotes on these topics.  While I pulled from a number of sources, I appreciated the ones at the JoyofQuotes.com. All of the quotes below are immediately tweetable (according to number of characters). I hope you enjoy these. Post your favorite quotes on play, fun, and playfulness. I’d love to see them.

Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning
Dianne Ackerman

play produces feelings of pleasure which help you escape from two major creativity killers – stress and self-consciousness
Jordan Ayan

Whoever wants to understand much must play much
Gottfried Bern

Play keeps us fit physically and mentally.
Stuart Brown

Play is the exultation of the possible.
Martin Buber

Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it.
Eileen Caddy

Play has been man’s most useful preoccupation.
Frank Caplan

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!
Charlie Chaplin

The true object of all human life is play.
G.K. Chesterton

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
John Cleese

Life is playfulness…We need to play so that we can rediscover the magic all around us.
Flora Colao

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish
Aeschylus

Laughter puts your brain, your central nervous system and your whole being into a state of free play.
Max Eastman

Play is the highest form of research.
Albert Einstein

To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition.
Albert Einstein

It is a happy talent to know how to play.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
Heraclitus

Most people are much more unusual and complicated and eccentric and playful and creative than they have time to express.
Oliver Herring

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.
Kay Renfield Jamison

Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.
Michael Jordan

Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.
Abraham Maslow

In the true man there is a child concealed – who wants to play.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.
Joseph Chilton Pierce

Do not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.
Plato

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.
Plato

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
Plato

In the garden of your days cultivate festivity, play and celebrations.
Mary Anne Radmacher

It’s not that you won or lost…but how you played the game.
Grantland Rice

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.
Charles Schaefer

Serious play is not an oxymoron; it is the essence of innovation.
Michael Schrage

We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.
George Bernard Shaw

The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression.
Brian Sutton-Smith

It is essential to our well-being, and to our lives, that we play and enjoy life.
Marcia Wieder

I had a great weekend. I hope you did too. As I journey back from the edge, I have been working on having more fun. I often am perplexed as to what I really would enjoy doing. This past weekend, I met some new friends in Columbus and then came back to Akron for some more adventures. I got together with some other folks and we just hung out. I capped the night off with going to see the movie Salt alone. The combination of being with friends, travel, and taking in a movie was a joyful experience.

I got to thinking and decided fun and playfulness would be a good topic for this week. You may have noticed that I post a lot of presentation from TED (a conference on Technology, Entertainment, and Design). It is simply because they consistently turn-out some of the most interesting talks by some incredible people. Below you will find a presentation by Stuart Brown who is the founder of the National Institute for Play. In the presentation he explores the importance of play in all aspects of personal and social life. It’s as good a place as any to begin exploring this rich topic.

What do you do for fun? Have you discovered/rediscovered your playful side? I’d love to hear your thoughts

I normally don’t get a chance to listen to Morning Edition on NPR. However, the other day I caught the last segment. It was an interview with William Powers the author of Hamlet’s BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. The title grabbed me (it is truly an obscure Shakespearean reference). As I listened to the interview, I realized it fit the theme of slowness I have been exploring this week. I haven’t read this book yet, so I can’t recommend it. However, it is intriguing to me.

The author begins with the following: “This book is about a yearning and a need. It’s about finding a quiet, spacious place where the mind can wander free. We all know what that place feels like, and we used to know how to get there. But lately we’re having trouble finding it”. That bit sings to me. As I venture back from the edge, I have become increasingly aware of how busy my mind is. I have been exploring different ways to get to a place where my “mind can wander free”.

I have begun reading Carl Horné’s book In Praise of Slowness: How A Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed. The two books appear to explore much the same theme but from different angles.

Since I haven’t read the book yet, I didn’t include it in the rotation of weekly recommendations. I decided to go ahead and post in a rare Saturday posting so I could include it in this week’s theme.

If you’ve read it, I’d love to know what you thought of it.

The blog post 73 tips for simplifying your life, begins with the following quote:

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.  It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.”  ~E.F. Schumacher

This is very much the same observation as those in the slow movement. This posting does not so much advocate slowness as it does a decluttering or a simplifying.

The blog continues with “Do you want to start making changes so that you can lead a simpler life but do not know where to get started? Here are 100 [Note: There are 73]  Tips, Tricks, and Hacks on how to start living a simpler life” [all courtesy of livesimp.ly].

You may find items blasphemous, ridiculous, non-pertinent, but I’d wager there is something on the list that will intrigue you. Continue reading the article at live simp.ly

Let me know which suggestions popped your wheelie.

The slow manifesto:

We shall not flag or fail. We shall slow down in the office, and on the roads. We  shall slow down with growing confidence when all those around us are in a shrill state of hyperactivity (signifying nothing). We shall defend our state of calm, whatever the cost may be. We shall slow down in the fields and in the streets, we shall slow down in the hills, we shall never surrender!

A bit tongue in cheek (or maybe just cheeky) but this website [SlowDownNow.org] for the iindm (International Institute of Not Doing Much) contains a wealth of information on slowing down.

Since the theme of this week has been slowing down and the slow movement, I figured it would be a good resource. Join the iindm army and you are entitled to use one of their SLOW badges (yeah, I know ‘badges, we don’t need no stinkin’ badges’).

Also from the site:

If you can slow down when all around you are speeding up, then you’re one of us. Be proud that you are one of us and not one of them. For they are fast, and we are slow. If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing slowly. Some are born to slowness—others have it thrust upon them. And still others know that lying in bed with a morning cup of tea is the supreme state for mankind.

Take a look and let me know what you think

Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of God

~ R W Emerson via @freeezmoney

In your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go and sheltered so may thrive and grow.

~ Louise Driscoll via @SwimBikeRunning

For fast~acting relief, try slowing down.

~ Lily Tomlin via @LightBeamWisdom

Take time to be friendly. It is the road to happiness. ~ Unknown via @succezstwittey

Yesterday I posted a video in which Carl Honore talked about the slow movement. It struck me because I am an adrenaline junky. I’m not into extreme sports, I don’t ride a motorcycle, I don’t parachute, I don’t do any of that stuff. What I do is distract myself and am constantly looking for a new stimulus. I move from activity to activity without pause. I go from working on the computer, to watching TV, to playing on the computer. My day is full of large and small adrenaline hits. One of the most difficult things for me to do is to be still and quiet. I am nurturing a habit of daily meditation. I have started recording my success rate. As of today it was 50%. I find it very difficult to sit still for 10 minutes and when I do meditate I invariably have monkey mind. This is where my thoughts jump from one to the other just like monkey swinging and jumping from tree to tree.

Professor Guttorm Fløistad summarized the slow movements philosophy this way:

The only thing for certain is that everything changes. The rate of change increases. If you want to hang on you better speed up. That is the message of today. It could however be useful to remind everyone that our basic needs never change. The need to be seen and appreciated! It is the need to belong. The need for nearness and care, and for a little love! This is given only through slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection and togetherness. There we will find real renewal.

I ordered a book by Carl Honore entitled In Praise of Slowness: How A Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed. It will be my next read. I’ll let you know what I think. In the mean time, take a look at the website http://www.slowmovement.com/ it provides insights and resources for those interested in the slow movement.

Maybe the reality of the “slow movement” just hasn’t gotten around to me yet. In the video below, Carl Honore explains the need and the outcomes related to embracing my inner tortoise.

At my last corporate job, I burned out. I Was traveling, planning, selling, and all of the other hundred things that comes with working for a small company. Eventually, I just couldn’t do it anymore and I physically and emotionally collapsed. I am still journeying back from that edge and am stronger for it.

I have been getting involved in several projects lately that include going to grad school and starting a business. I have been finding that I’ve been getting back on the treadmill. This video reminded me about the need to have times in my life when I slow down. Every moment does not have to be full of productivity and planning. In fact, it helped me to remember that I am much more creative when I embrace slowness.

Let me know what you think of the video. Specifically, what do you think of slowness? Do it seem to have a value?

The slow movement