Once upon a time, in a land far far away lived a chronic gambler named Stephen and his astonishingly beautiful daughter called Amelie.Stephen was the type of man that always lost in his gambling addiction, he had sold his car, furniture, put two mortgages on the house and spent his daughters savings to go to college all towards supporting it.On his way to work one day, Stephen spotted a sign inviting all poker players in that area to come to the annual Pokerama that was held at the casino, of course as all unfortunate gamblers, he thought that this was his big chance to win everything back so he went to visit a few loan sharks till he came across one that agreed to loan him the money for the $2,000 entrance fee…with one condition though, if he couldn’t pay him back the money, he would have to give him his daughters hand in marriage.Stephen like any other cocky gambler accepted the deal and that same night went off to play some poker, it was no surprise that once again…he lost, and the following morning two henchman came looking for him and Amelie to escort them to the big bosses beach house.
They found the loan shark boss standing next to the shore observing the sea, as they approached him, he turned around and immediately asked, “Do you have my money?”, Stephen jumped to his knees and answered “No Sir I lost, but I beg of you…please please, don’t take my daughter, shes the only thing I have in this world!” as he sobbed like a baby.The boss answered, “Since your a man that likes to gamble and I’m in a specially good mood today, I’ll tell you what…I’m going to pick up two stones from the many ones that are on the ground, one will be white and the other will be black, I will put them in a bag and we will ask Amelie to take one out blindly.If she takes the white one out, I’ll give you another week to pay me back, if she pulls out the black one however, you will leave her with me right now and walk away forever from her life.” , Stephen of course agreed, but as the man was picking up the stones from the sand, Amelie noticed that he had quickly picked two black ones instead of one of each color…making it impossible for them to have a positive outcome, and she being a quiet shy soul, didn’t have the courage to say anything in front of the scary looking men, but she also had a very playful mind that helped her come up with a plan, she went forward towards the man and sticked her hand inside the bag, she pulled one of the stones out and pretend to drop it, “Oops” she said as she quickly kneeled down to try and find it, she then continued; “It will be impossible to try and find the stone I dropped amongst all these other stones on the sand…but I have an idea!, lets look inside the bag and see what stone is left, if we know what color stone is left…we will know the color of the stone I pulled out and accidentally dropped”.
Playful Creativity, The Inventor of Insecurities
The one thing I really really disliked the most when I was younger was being told to get my head out of the clouds and put my feet on the ground, teachers expected us to be serious about our studies and start worrying about our future and what job we’d choose, what extra curricular activities we were doing towards helping our application to a Collage go well.I always thought I was quite capable of having my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground at the same time, so I never understood why they wanted to steal my imagination and random playful thinking away and substitute it with all these problems…when the above story is a clear illustration of how a playful mind works and encourages creativity.
Curiosity is basically considered having a playful mind, Who are the most curious people in the world? playful children, as an adult you can turn that childish curiosity into creativity, which in basis is the ability to look at things from different perspectives, to grab an idea and not only look at it in a straight line but to play with it, to flip it around, turn it upside down, inside out till you come across something you like.
I’m a very logical person but logic only takes you so far…it makes you follow the straight line from point A to B of rational thought and that sometimes takes away your creativity and imagination, haven’t you ever been in bed almost falling asleep when suddenly you had an amazing idea? (most of mine come like that), That’s because when your mind is entering the dreaming state it stops thinking so logically/rationally and is able to find connections where it would of never found them before, relying solely logical thinking.Some of the most inventive/creative people were considered crazy in their times because their ideas seemed totally irrational, take Salvador Dali for instance, he use to sit on a couch with a spoon in his hand while falling asleep…as soon as he was falling asleep, the spoon would slip from his hand, bang the floor and wake him up.He said in those few seconds of semi-dreaming rich imaginative state, he was inspired by the most amazing visual images. Picasso is known for his abstract work which some resemble a lot the paintings a young playful child could make, It not only applies to art though, Michael Jackson was known for his eccentric childlike behavior, Isaac Newton came up with his theory of gravity while resting under a tree and being hit on the head by an apple, Aristarchus of Samos proposing…”What if the sun isn’t actually spinning around Earth like we think but the other way around?”, Albert Einstein’s concept of an Expanding Universe occurred to him while in the bath tub playing with soap bubbles and watching them expand and dissolve.
Playfulness is spontaneous because your mind is at a let go, discovery has come to people who were playing with their lives, if they had been serious about them and not playful…they would of started a business, a factory or something.
Seriousness, The Father of the Secure
But if having a playful mind is such a good thing, why isn’t everyone as fun, imaginative and playful?…even people my age, some seem to have a stick up their bum all the time with no sense of humor and take everything so seriously, it appears the older we become the more serious we get…and the more rational/logical and intellectual the person is, the worse they become.
I believe it has to do with the security feeling and peace of mind being a serious person offers, being rational is following a straight line from one idea to another, from one rule to another…it’s a sure thing, it’s logical and mathematical, 2 + 2 = 4, theres no argument about it because we have a decimal system that made those rational rules perfectly clear, purely created in the basis of us having 10 fingers…if we had had 12 fingers, our whole mathematical ruling system would have changed and perhaps influenced the entire world as we know it.Thats why the biggest mathematicians/physicists like Leonhard Euler or Einstein had to come up with their own math systems to work with higher and more complex figures because the ‘ruling’ systems available limited their abilities.
So if being serious is based on having a feeling of security, and that security is provided to us by inflicting certain rules and traditions…how could anyone be creative with such restrictions? Tradition can only repeat old ideas, and rules can only provide security to what has already been done and proven to work, thats why intellectual people might be so serious and use sarcasm as a form of “playful” humor…because intellectuals can accumulate knowledge, and knowledge is limited, but creativity is infinite and only requires an imagination to come up with something new, something that isn’t in that rational path from point A to point B.
It’s not knowledge though that is serious…everything has become serious, anything that has rules, traditions or expectations is something serious.Take marriage for example, I’m all for it (cause I too suffer under tradition) and find beauty in the idea of aging with someone and sharing all those moments together, but love and marriage are completely different things…love is being playful, getting to know each other, messing around, but once you bring a church into it, some rings, a signed document, planning out your entire life and who you will have to love with “witnesses” to make sure you do… it becomes something very formal and serious because now there’s certain rules you have to follow :S, there’s a reason why sometimes love just isn’t there anymore in some couples…yet since they got married to provide themselves with that security sensation the reassuring serious act of marriage brings, they try to patch things up in desperation and bring back that love (and security) somehow by going to counselors, on cruise ships, bringing “toys and role playing” into their sex lives…
Having a playful mind means becoming vulnerable…exposing yourself to the uncertainty of not using the safe rules, letting your imagination flow with irrationality and living your life on the edge without knowing what will happen next, because your not following the serious path everyone else is following anymore, but are using your machete (random playful thinking) to open yourself a new way through the bushes…and who knows what snakes and other dangerous creatures you may find?
I’ve always wanted to be like the playful mind who saw a cow for the first time and thought to himself, “Mmmm, I’m going to go and squeeze on that beasts breasts and drink the first thing that comes out…”
Who do you want to be like?
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