Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Searching for Playfulness - everywhere
If you've been following my Delicious FUN bookmarks (as everso conveniently echoed in the Delicious FUN widget, as everso wisely installed by my everso increasingly appreciated son), you've undoubtedly noticed my current investigation of sites using the term "playful" and "playfulness" and even "playfulness training." It has been a rather, if you'll excuse the expression "delicious" search, leading me to some remarkable people and a remarkably wide range of applications of those terms to things like pet care and interactive design.
The reason for my renewed interest in these terms are all quite personal. I've come to a time in my life in which I can begin devoting more of my energy to developing my own sense of playfulness - in pursuing, with more devotion, my own Playful Path.
My awakening to this need has been stimulated by my sojourn in Israel, where the dead seriousness of the war has reached into the very soul of a war-weary country; by the wonderful conversations I've been having with my son about the connections between his growing faith in Judaism and my continued belief in fun, and especially by the freedom I've been given to notice those times when I could be having more fun - times with my grandchildren, their parents, my wife; times alone, just walking around Jerusalem - much more fun.
I have written a great deal about this idea of the Playful Path. When I released the most recent edition of The Well-Played Game, I gave it the subtitle: A Playful Path to Wholeness. But, after some remarkably deep conversation with my son, it became clear that I might have the most success in my search for fun by focusing not so much on playfulness, or the web, or even on the depths of the deep fun of flow, but on the experience I have called Minor Fun - those everyday invitations to enjoyment that come with the breezes, the smiles, the touches of love, the play and interplay of shadows.
from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith
The reason for my renewed interest in these terms are all quite personal. I've come to a time in my life in which I can begin devoting more of my energy to developing my own sense of playfulness - in pursuing, with more devotion, my own Playful Path.
My awakening to this need has been stimulated by my sojourn in Israel, where the dead seriousness of the war has reached into the very soul of a war-weary country; by the wonderful conversations I've been having with my son about the connections between his growing faith in Judaism and my continued belief in fun, and especially by the freedom I've been given to notice those times when I could be having more fun - times with my grandchildren, their parents, my wife; times alone, just walking around Jerusalem - much more fun.
I have written a great deal about this idea of the Playful Path. When I released the most recent edition of The Well-Played Game, I gave it the subtitle: A Playful Path to Wholeness. But, after some remarkably deep conversation with my son, it became clear that I might have the most success in my search for fun by focusing not so much on playfulness, or the web, or even on the depths of the deep fun of flow, but on the experience I have called Minor Fun - those everyday invitations to enjoyment that come with the breezes, the smiles, the touches of love, the play and interplay of shadows.
from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith
Labels: playfulness
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