Wednesday, February 04, 2004
My name is Andrew, and I'm a play-a-holic.
On today's Playful Path messsage board:
My name is Andrew, and I'm a play-a-holic.
Sometimes I feel like the desire to play is a disease. At age 36, most of my adult friends seem to have the attitude that play is for children, not grown-ups.
Maybe it's just the mentality here in Pittsburgh, PA. It just seems to me like the grown-ups I know are afraid to be silly. Don't want to play for the sake of playing.
I've posted to the old list about a game a few of us sometimes play called "Murder: A Twisted Game of Tag". Getting past players to return is pretty easy -- once you know how much fun it is, you're anxious to play again. But getting new people to join the fun is difficult. They can't seem to grasp the idea that it's OK for grown-ups to run around in the dark with flashlights playing tag. That's the kind of thing children do, not adults.
Another thing grown-ups seem to have trouble with is being impromptu. I realize it can be difficult, if you have kids or a demanding job, to just call up a friend and have a spur-of-the-moment get-together. Many folks I know would only do that if their bubble was about to burst and they need to spill their guts to someone pronto, to maintain their sanity. How do you convince them to say "yes" when you just want to meet in the park to play Frisbee or come over for a volley of Nerf Table Tennis?
Most of the *new* friends I've made over the past few years are a lot younger than me. I have one friend, whom I truly consider a friend, who hasn't even turned 18 yet! It's not that I don't want to hang out with people my own age, it's that people my own age seem to have forgotten how to hang out!
Have any of you come up against this kind of resistance? How do you overcome it? How do you convince an adult that silliness is a great thing to be at any age?
Peace,
Andrew
Noise E Piranha
I respond:
it is in deed. A social disease. We have all been repeatedly re-infected with the sobriety virus, every day at school, at work, in the military.
Those of us, like you and I Andrew, seem to be naturally immune, our astonishing recuperating powers bringing us back to healthy fun, usually in a matter of minutes. Though sometimes it takes what seems like days, I tell you, maybe weeks even.
This is why we need to exercise so much compassion with our fellow Westerners. Even though we as a nation have managed to package fun so well that we bring it to virtually every part of the world, most of us have done so at the cost of our own fun. If we insist on reminding people of the fun they could be having, we only inflame the disease and aggravate it to a fever pitch of anger and confusion.
But you know, even when we were kids, we found our safe places for play - in the garage, or behind it, or at night. And sometimes even in the street. I think we knew even then that things like playing in public are political acts.
My name is Andrew, and I'm a play-a-holic.
Sometimes I feel like the desire to play is a disease. At age 36, most of my adult friends seem to have the attitude that play is for children, not grown-ups.
Maybe it's just the mentality here in Pittsburgh, PA. It just seems to me like the grown-ups I know are afraid to be silly. Don't want to play for the sake of playing.
I've posted to the old list about a game a few of us sometimes play called "Murder: A Twisted Game of Tag". Getting past players to return is pretty easy -- once you know how much fun it is, you're anxious to play again. But getting new people to join the fun is difficult. They can't seem to grasp the idea that it's OK for grown-ups to run around in the dark with flashlights playing tag. That's the kind of thing children do, not adults.
Another thing grown-ups seem to have trouble with is being impromptu. I realize it can be difficult, if you have kids or a demanding job, to just call up a friend and have a spur-of-the-moment get-together. Many folks I know would only do that if their bubble was about to burst and they need to spill their guts to someone pronto, to maintain their sanity. How do you convince them to say "yes" when you just want to meet in the park to play Frisbee or come over for a volley of Nerf Table Tennis?
Most of the *new* friends I've made over the past few years are a lot younger than me. I have one friend, whom I truly consider a friend, who hasn't even turned 18 yet! It's not that I don't want to hang out with people my own age, it's that people my own age seem to have forgotten how to hang out!
Have any of you come up against this kind of resistance? How do you overcome it? How do you convince an adult that silliness is a great thing to be at any age?
Peace,
Andrew
Noise E Piranha
I respond:
it is in deed. A social disease. We have all been repeatedly re-infected with the sobriety virus, every day at school, at work, in the military.
Those of us, like you and I Andrew, seem to be naturally immune, our astonishing recuperating powers bringing us back to healthy fun, usually in a matter of minutes. Though sometimes it takes what seems like days, I tell you, maybe weeks even.
This is why we need to exercise so much compassion with our fellow Westerners. Even though we as a nation have managed to package fun so well that we bring it to virtually every part of the world, most of us have done so at the cost of our own fun. If we insist on reminding people of the fun they could be having, we only inflame the disease and aggravate it to a fever pitch of anger and confusion.
But you know, even when we were kids, we found our safe places for play - in the garage, or behind it, or at night. And sometimes even in the street. I think we knew even then that things like playing in public are political acts.
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