Playtime

 

Image: http://www.mogio.co.uk

In any aspect of life, playtime is vital. It is seriously important that we all chill out!

Think about a baby…They start with so little. They can’t walk, talk, or fend for themselves in any way. And yet they learn at a frenetic rate. There is much said about the elasticity of young brains and how this is lost as we grow up. Bullshit.

They learn quickly because they are not afraid to make mistakes. They laugh at mistakes. They celebrate them for what they are – another step closer to getting things right. And what is ‘right’ anyway? Just an egoic label arbitrary assigned by society.

To get good at anything, be that learning to speak, writing, sports, Martial Arts, dancing, anything… we have to play. We have to create for ourselves a zone where we can just try things out. A space free from fear of failure to try different permutations and see what works and what doesn’t. This is especially important in the creative arts. Here we adopt the rule of completely detaching judgment of what we are doing until we are at a point where we can reflect and review.  Then and only then is it time to let the control freak have their say. In this Blog, whether it is poetry, Haikus or longer articles I make great effort to write quickly and without too much self-consciousness. If my posts are not always as polished as they should be then that is a consequence of the playful spirit in which I write. And as C-C Lester writes in her brilliant post ‘The Author, The Journalist and the Blogger’, that is what blogging is all about – experimentation. Experimentation and play.