Talking About Play
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Enjoying the peanut butter and other pearls of wissom.
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Play and mental health recovery. Following is based on a 2009 interview (I was the one being interviewed) with Therese Borchard for Beyond Blue ...
I've been doing a lot of thinking on the whole topic of play-fun-happiness, but I have to confess, I tend to be an expert in the very opposite. In fact, I have more words for my depressions than an Eskimo has for snow.
Play or fun or happiness is much more difficult for me to wrap my frontal lobes around, but I am able to tap into childhood memories. For instance, I recall playing ball on those summer evenings with the neighborhood kids. Or maybe it's hide and seek. Or maybe we're poking around in places we're not supposed to be in. Literally, we're enjoying ourselves so much that we can stay out there forever. Then, one by one, our moms call us in.
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After all these years I've finally figured out that my state of mind on those summer evenings way back when Eisenhower or Kennedy was President is what I need to be shooting for right now. For me, it's more than just a life choice. When depression gets the upper hand, literally, life stops. With fun, we're talking the very opposite.
Looking back on my adolescent and adult life, I can attribute a lot of my loneliness and isolation and depressions to my own folly - failing to live in the present, fretting about the future and getting over-anxious. Instead of being the kid who could have played ball all evening with my friends, I was more like my mom worried about getting me into pajamas for the night. Mental illness thrives in these conditions.
So play is far from frivolous. This is smart living we're talking about here. More than smart - vital.Five Steps to Have More Fun
First - Enjoy the peanut butter. As you can see in the picture, here I am trying to explain to Spock the concept of peanut butter. Spock is telling me that peanut butter is not logical (Cardassian tofu apparently is) which is exactly my point. Forget about the bread. Stick a fork in the jar and go for it.
"Enjoy the peanut butter" is my metaphor for living in the present. It comes from an old Zen parable about savoring strawberries as tigers are about to rip you apart. The present is where life is happening, here, right now.
Second - Think small. Life is about the small things - such as peanut butter. Guess what? If I wish for peanut butter, I get my wish all the time. Okay, I think I've exhausted the peanut butter metaphor.
Third - Think big. Happiness is a very tall order, especially for those of us who are depressed a good deal of the time. We can't imagine it. We don't think we deserve it. We have to contend with a lifetime of negative conditioning. Turning our brains around is a mammoth undertaking, and it's simply not going to happen unless we're one hundred percent committed to getting it done.So - if you've decided to work through the weekend to catch up on projects after a whole week of no lunch breaks, you're not serious. You're just a no-good slacker. The same holds true if you're vegging out in front of the TV. Either way - workaholic or couch potato - imagining a life that is different from the one you are leading right now can be the most difficult task in the world. Three words: Dare to imagine.
Fourth - Try new things. Chances are your concept of fun is all wrong. Maybe you're substituting other people's ideas of fun for your own. Maybe you're locked in old habits. Then you wonder why you're not having fun. People who are having fun are being true to themselves. The test: If you don't feel like a kid again, it's not fun. You need to try something new. And keep trying.
Fifth - Play for the sake of play. Yes, we can enjoy our work and other obligations, but work and play are separate. We often fall into the trap of trying to mix play with something "constructive" as if to justify the reason for play. When that happens, we are working and not playing.
We also tend to bring our ulterior motives into play, such as meeting new people, for whatever reasons. When that happens, we are no longer playing. We're out of the present moment and into a future that doesn't exist. To paraphrase the Buddhist masters, "When you play, just play."
Loving Your Work is Not Play
I love writing, and I'm one of the lucky people on earth who has turned my passion into my livelihood. Plus I enjoy the double-whammy effect of writing about a topic I am passionate about. But as much fun as I may be having, I am still working. I have responsibilities, I have deadlines, I have difficult problems to solve. I am working my mind hard, to the point of exhaustion.
I used to confuse my work with play, which meant I never got a break from work. After all, why stop if I'm having so much fun? Then it suddenly dawned on me: If I was enjoying myself so much, why then was I getting depressed so much of the time? Clearly, my brain was telling me something.
I first got an insight into this when I moved to southern CA from the east coast, and a friend took me to a resort where he goes to play water volleyball. I was a bit hesitant, as I have terrible eyesight and am badly coordinated. Moreover, I have bad memories about being the last one picked on teams as a kid and I didn't want to relive those awful humiliations.
But once I got in the pool, I experienced far more pleasant childhood memories, of being kids on a summer evening. That's what I learned from water volleyball. When I am playing, really playing - not simply cultivating a playful spirit, not simply having fun at work - I am a kid once more. Then the clock hits 3:30, signaling the end of our last session in the pool. Our moms are calling us in for the evening. It's a moment to savor.
Operating Instructions: This is How You Play
See also: Take Back Our Play!
April 24, 2011
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