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I might be repeating myself. I might be repeating myself. The thing is, this connection between play, playfulness and freedom keeps on surfacing, calling for attention, for action, even.
Today, it was the playful/freedom connection that made me write this post. Saying, in its own playful way, that playfulness is, if possible, even more freeing than play itself.
When people talk about plain old play, like playing games, sports, music they frequently point out how the rules, the structure, the confines of the game are there for a purpose.
Rules and goals, boundaries, uniforms and equipment separate the game from everything else. They create a challenge which is separate from the challenges of every day life - a fictional challenge.
But once overcome, once we manage to become good enough to free ourselves from the constraints, to find play within the constraints, then we become truly free.
But when we play playfully, the premise, the assumption is that we are already free. We are free, not only to play within the rules, but to play with the rules.
Sure, we might break the game altogether, transform it into something totally different. But, hey, if it's fun, if it's more fun, well then, why let that stop us?
And today, it's the idea of playfulness itself that is calling me to call you. Because playfulness is an even more liberating way of being than play itself, more, well, freeing. More, in fact, revolutionary.
And if you review that little TED talk I gave a couple years ago it's obvious that that's what I was demonstrating all along. Not just about the politics of playing in public, but even more about the politics of being playful in public.
Not even about playing playfully. But simply about being playful. In public.
In case you didn't notice. I can't blame you. Not in the least. I've been too close to that kind of play for too long. No, not even play. To playfulness itself. So close that I didn't even notice it was playfulness that I've been teaching, demonstrating, advocating, inviting you to share, all the darn long.
Just plain playfulness. As in the kind of playfulness that you find once you discover your playful path.
Yes. That's the freeing kind of play. That's the not just playing. That's the way of being that sets you and all with whom you are playful free. Yes. Playful being. That kind.
