The child is free at play
"The other is the child, who plays free and in what seems like utter chaos, but with a closer look is a harmonious rapture of energy."
BY ANTHONY ROSS
I've started writing again on a consistent basis. Partly to digest what it is that I might write and partly to write what I'm digesting. It is, unlike other social media, a medium where a greater expression can be given. One that's not broken down into pictures and a few words. In these last couple days of writing, I've noticed a theme. The theme is play and the struggle I have with it. This would be, perhaps, the book I would write. As someone who struggles with play, I would learn about it and use the context of writing to explain to myself what it is I'm discovering and applying regarding this subject.
Play to me is a struggle. Why? I think it has to do with the components of knowledge and ignorance. When I say ignorance in this context, I mean lack of knowledge. In starting out life as a child, we know nothing. We feel our way through life and we do what we must do, without understanding how others may perceive it. We cry, eat, poop and sleep. Crying is our language and the others are our necessities. What happens later in life? We start to have ideas about things and without connecting with the feeling of necessity or the language that we created without any secondary hand outs, we are forced into a world of symbols.
Terence Mckenna once spoke of how the magical bird that may appear outside a child's window becomes a mere 'bird' when the parent comes in and tells them what it is. The bird becomes the word, in a non-musical, non-playful way. Though there is a magic to this symbolism, I might argue there is a greater magic to the unknown and to language that comes out of feeling and is not entirely guided by the intellect. I don't know the way out of this, because we do need to communicate. The key is to not be over run by verbal communication and to 'think' in different ways, through feeling, intuition and in less linear faculties of intelligence.
Play is not an A to B to C type of moving. It develops well with a good foundation, but it is as unstable as the ocean. Unstable to the mind and the intellect, that is. The play itself builds an order within itself. Play is a flower. And the water, sun and nutrients the flower must have to grow are like the parent who feeds the child and is there for safety. The child itself is unbridled in its movement, like the water that nourishes. We don't know where the child ends up, we can only watch with a caring appreciation and keep it safe. So as one who attempts to play, I see myself as two people. One is an adult, watching with wisdom and nourishment. The other is the child, who plays free and in what seems like utter chaos, but with a closer look is a harmonious rapture of energy. It is the responsibility of oneself to be these two people, so that the freedom is there, so play is the flower it is and remains innocent like the sun.
What doesn't work is when the adult says to the child, "You must play." As Alan Watts puts it, "this is a double bind." As the adult, we can't force the child. This is putting the adult's point of view on to the child's order, which is free of 'the old.' Our knowledge is limited to what the child knows. And the child doesn't understand the adult, who is usually rather confused with too many thoughts. The two work separately, yet together. This is the balance of living as an adult, or one who grows up to learn the symbols placed upon reality. Keep the little bit of madness alive, however little it may seem. That is the play.
Ceci n'est pas une oiseaux.
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