Let’s try to PLAY
Do you put yourself in the game?
I was late this week with the newsletter, so you’re getting Let’s try as a Easter Egg! I’m in Riga having a lovely lunch with other volunteers, missing home, but still trying to be present!
There’s a type of adult who doesn’t play anymore.
Not because they don’t have time. Because they’ve decided they’re “above it”.
Too serious, too experienced, too aware of how things work to get genuinely involved.
I’ve been that person. I recognise it in others too. It’s not always of course, but it can happen to any of us trying to navigate adulthood!
But…
…I’ve started to think that not playing isn’t maturity. It’s fear. Fear of losing. Fear of looking ridiculous.
Fear of caring about something and having it not go your way.
If you stay above the game, you can’t lose. You also can’t win. And more importantly, nothing actually happens to you. You watch. You comment. You remain intact.
But intact is not the same as alive.
The child who plays doesn’t think about looking stupid.
They’re just in it: fully, without irony, without the protective layer of not really trying.
And when they lose, they lose. And then they play again.
I think there’s something worth recovering there. Although this is not just a “fake it till you make it” sort of bullshit eheh.
Not naivety.
Not ignoring the rules, actually the opposite. You can only really play if you respect the rules enough to be bound by them. Pretending the rules don’t apply to you is just another way of not playing.
That said, there’s a difference between stepping back from the wrong game and stepping back because you’re afraid of the right one. Sometimes the game doesn’t suit you, the values are off, the people are wrong, the rules don’t make sense. Leaving that is fine. Leaving is not always quitting. Sometimes is finding the right pitch for your game.
But some other times, what keeps us from enjoying is not the game. It’s our own lack of commitment to it. We’re in it but not really in it. Half playing, one eye on the exit. And in that state, nothing lands, not the wins, not the losses, not the fun.
Commitment is what makes something real. Without it, you’re just going through the motions. And going through the motions is its own kind of spectating.
So: get in the game. Accept that you might lose. Care about it enough that it matters. And have fun with it!! Try REALLY and FULLY to be alive, to notice things, to not have always mediators (digital or emotional).
Being a spectator of your own life is the worst seat in the theatre/cinema/house!
No?
Lova you
F