IMAGINATION

99 44/100% Pure Play

IMAGINATION

99 44/100% Pure Play

We imagine our lives. 

We come to imagine life as absolutely real. 

Our lives are made of stories we come to believe.

That’s not how we start. As newborn humans we come into and out of the world at the same time. As one with it all. No beliefs on board.

We live here and now.

We story our lives. We experience life sensationally, we feel. We learn to live. 

Our innate needs cry out for food, comfort, and safety. We seek, unburdened with thoughts and concepts, to live in uninhibited ways. Our natural curiosity leads us to see with wondrous eyes. We move courageously toward what attracts our attention. 

We learn to crawl, stand, reach, walk, and eventually talk. While biology (nature) plays a critical role, nurture, too, shapes our unfolding experience.  

Mothers are eager for acknowledgement. Who can blame them? They would like to hear ‘Mama,’ or a reasonable facsimile, sooner than later. They want a bit of recognition for the pain and fatigue attending motherhood.

I know, I know - fathers care, too. It’s 2024. A new age.

Sufficed to say, it’s a tough adjustment for one and all. 

My simplifications here do not escape me. I’m not a Ph.D candidate in early childhood development, family dynamics, or any brand of sociology or, for that matter, any ‘ology’ of any kind. I have no committee to please.

Hence, I paint in broad strokes and cut to the chase.

With exposure to life and a host of contingent social circumstances, along with developing neurological capacities, we begin to believe. 

Naming comes into regular play. We become somebody. Not just anybody. A particular somebody - with a name. We identify with that name. We believe we are the person named __________________, and our name becomes a keystone in the structure of our identity.

We buy into the name game with enthusiasm. It becomes one of the multiplayer games we play. Play is the way we learn.

We learn to be somebody. Being erupts into believing.

We point at shiny objects and Mama or Dada (or whoever is taking care) gives it a name. We’re off and running. In time we learn to use language. We learn much more than single words, we learn how to put words together systematically, syntax and grammar, add voice and gesture; we learn to communicate in complex patterns of expression.

Many influences have their way with us. We’re subject to different kinds and degrees of identity and social expectations. 

We are, in short, socialized. We learn ‘our place’ and what others consider appropriate behavior given that place.

CAUTION SCHOOL AHEAD

Limited playtime is segregated from highly valued so-called learning time. Schools divide play from learning; this strict division is called ‘education.’ It’s serious. Where you go to school - not all schools are created equal - and how you rank in class portends future opportunities and ultimate success in life. 

Serious learning is largely language based and standardized. Subjects are separated as disciplines. This comes as a shock to the sensibilities of young and sensitive souls. 

School trains children for a race to the ‘top.’ 

As we saw last time in “Words,” language, when used mindlessly, mistakes symbols for experiential (sensed) phenomena. The word tree is not a particular tree in a unique environment with dynamic, vital, interdependent connections to a whole and living universe in perpetual flux. 

Language certainly has value and utility. I’m using language here to point to a fundamental crisis in creativity that squeezes the life out of living.  

Language can serve us well. It is an excellent servant, though a terrible master. Making that distinction in an integrated way takes care, discipline, and consistent practice. It likely lays beyond the ken of most children.

Christopher Chase in his essay, How We Learn to Compartmentalize, details the brutality of school and its impact on contemporary life.

“Modern educational institutions were designed to train children to see and experience the world divided up into parts, thereby disconnecting them from the unified whole (of nature, community, universe), which is where, in truth, we all belong.

Science, art, history, literature, math, music are presented to children as being completely separate from one another. They don’t learn how these are interdependently connected. Children are tested, measured (and compared with each other) for how well they can remember what they were taught. This creates a further sense of alienation and disconnection.

Over time our consciousness compartmentalizes, so that by adulthood we come to see ourselves as individuals separate from the universe. We learn to experience life and see the world divided up into parts, as fed by the media and taught when we were institutionalized (as children).

Think about that. Let it sink in. Most of us were institutionalized as children.

And so civilization’s people have been trained to disconnect from the wisdom of our bodies, our spirit, our creative intuitions and Nature. Alienated from our deeper selves (and the world around us) many feel dissatisfied, fearful and lonely..

This is how we were programmed to think, act and be. We are coerced  to regurgitate, fear, and obey. Then to fill the void within us by fitting into social molds, doing meaningless work for those with more power (and money) and consuming, endlessly consuming..

Wars, violence, nationalism, ecological destruction, consumerism, racism, suicide, school shootings, religious extremism, widespread addictions to cell phones, pornography, food, drugs, work, guns, superficial sex, career status, alcohol and shopping are all attempts to fill the emptiness in our hearts.”

Widespread spiritual emptiness and a paucity of creative energy sparks the need for ACTING HUMAN. We must offer a generous response, affirm life as art; practice with intention for the sake of our sanity and humanity.

Every child is an artist. We have an opportunity to cultivate the creativity of all children. 

AND, we can repair the tragic harm we’ve done to ourselves. We, who have survived, can learn to thrive. Resilience is our human birthright. 

We can regrow ourselves ‘as if’ we were children again. In the spirit of childhood.

We should not confuse childish with childlike. The former is naive and puerile, the latter gives us permission to imagine and play fruitfully. To untie the Gordian knot that entraps us in in beliefs that strangle inspiration and free spirit.

“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.” ~Gloria Steinem

We can overcome the persistent instruction to stop day-dreaming and get serious. We’ve substituted stiff and serious poses for mature and skillful creativity in daily life.

We need not see fantasy as frivolous. With awareness, fantasies are a sure fire way to delve into our deepest selves, and to emerge unashamed and whole. 

“Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.”  ~James Baldwin

We can reclaim wonder and natural desires; to value sincere engagement and reject excessive conformity. I do recommend we continue to mind the gaps and look both ways before crossing busy streets. For the record, my lawyer, Algonquin J. Calhoun, insisted on the above disclaimer.

With recognition that play is a way of seeing, we can naturally learn to live together in love and peace. Just as we learned to walk and talk. Naturally.

We can invite ourselves to welcome the joys of laughter and light-heartedness, never taking our stories too seriously. We can play with and in our stories. Have fun.

I am fully aware of the jolt embedded in this post. It is necessary. ACTING HUMAN calls for consistent practice over time. It is not easy. It is fun. 

WE NEED TO KNOW WHY WE PRACTICE. Our lives depend on it.

Clark Terry and I put our heads together more than once. He taught me that ‘the difference between a groove and a grave is only a matter of dimension.’ When we live in hip dimensions - tempos and rhythms that swing - we live life alive. CT knew how to live life alive. Terry was the epitome of artistic mastery, playfulness, and joy. Ask anyone who knew him. You’ll find fans all over the globe. (12/14/20 - 2/21/15)

We play in a Universal Theater. It’s a BIG house. Plenty of room to romp in laughter and tears, joyful play born anew, moment to moment, in the flow of fulsome imagination and free expression. 

I’ve come to see that life is verbal. To live - our verb. We must speak living truth with every breath, in every moment. Why lie to ourselves? It’s a drag.

We’ve got work to do. Acting is doing with a purpose in a Universe we co-create. In ACTING HUMAN we practice an aspirational art. Stanislavski called it Spiritual Realism. Truth and trust and courage are at its heart.

“This is the real secret of life - to completely engage with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it’s play.” ~Alan Watts

ACT HUMAN, actively play US, to live life alive. 

Until we meet next on Sunday,

Lights Up!