Back From The Edge

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

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

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. ~ Scott Adams via @kencooperusa

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties ~ Erich Fromm via @beautyshing

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. ~ W. Somerset Maugham via @Ashaw69

I spent time with friends last weekend. It was a coming home. I was welcomed into the family. I was snuggled and jumped on by the kids and caught up with my my friend and his wife. I’ve known him for 25 years but had not been in touch for years. He reached out to me a year ago and we have gotten together every couple of months.

It was great to play with the kids, sit up late and talk, play cribbage, watch the World Cup, drink some beer, eat the best barbecued chicken I’ve ever had.

The weekend was a reminder of a few things I need to remember as I come back from the edge:

1. It’s okay to let myself be loved
2. I enjoy kicking back and drinking a beer
3. I love to play games (in this case cribbage)
4. I appreciate close male friendships
5. Someone can know all about me and still accept me

It was a great weekend. As I enter back into the daily grind, the weekend continues to be a much needed tonic.

“A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are” ~ Unknown

Follow your bliss and doors will open for you that you never knew existed.

J. Campbell via @Quotalicious

Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.

Rainer Maria Rilke via @ZenLifeTools

FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real

Unknown via @Vincent_Ang

I may give the impression that the human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. (In this case the surroundings being the unique structure of camp life, which forced the prisoner to conform his conduct to a certain set pattern.) But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors-be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is man but an accidental product of these? Most important, do the prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?

We can answer these questions from experience as well as on principle. The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.

From Man’s Search for Meaning
by Viktor Frankl

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all knowledge is moonshine. – H.L. Mencken via @JJHomeBiz

Determine to live life with flair and laughter. -Maya Angelou via @workathomejoe

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. Samuel Butler via @QuoteDigest

“Everything we do is in service of our needs.
When this one concept is applied to our view of others,
we’ll see that we have no real enemies,
that what others do to us is the best possible thing
they know to do to get their needs met.”

Marshall Rosenberg from Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

“Attention is precious & it’s like money. Would you throw $5 on the ground? Be aware of who & where your attention is given.”

@Bregaddie

“The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.”

Robert J. Shiller via @InspiredRobin