Tag: play

Work and Play

A couple years ago, if you would have asked me to hangout/chill/grab coffee, my internal dialogue would automatically say “I’m busy”.  Work was all I had time for.  There was no delineation between work an play.  I would “work” all day but that time was sprinkled with procrastination and distraction disguised as “play”.  I was neither working at my full capacity nor playing without the dreaded guilt that I should be working.  There were no clear boundaries and I was wallowing in the middle of both worlds, unable to reap the benefits of both.  It was a vicious cycle that made me miserable.

One of the biggest changes in my life came from the discipline of segmenting my day into two distinct portions: work and play.  Knowing that upon finishing my work for the day I will be rewarded with play and relaxation drives me to put in undistracted deep work.  Knowing that I’ve finished my work for the day gives me the ease of mind to actually enjoy my time off without guilt and anxiety.

On Self and Service

Not all time is created equal.  We all know that.  An hour spent waiting is line does not mean as much to you as an hour spent playing with your children.  One of the most important decisions you make every day is how you will use your time.  But just as important I think, is how we decide to give our time.  Both have their own respective value, but they approach very different goals.  One is for the self and the other for service.  Helping ourselves comes easy but we can often forget the tremendous effect we have to help others.

Art and Possibility

Poetry is called upon to express the tangential ideas that won’t fit in the mechanical mold that has already been established.

Music flirts with the abstract ideas that evokes a unique and personal experience in each of us.

The essence of art tells the story that can’t be expressed thought a logical sequence of steps.  In doing so, art constantly pushes the boundaries of possibility.

 

Rules of the game

I used to be a video game junkie growing up.  I was thrown into escapism at its best.  There are certain rules and a limited set of controls, and that’s what makes them fun.  But this also makes them measurable, score-able, and comparable…the cause of most of our anxieties in life.  I realized this was only one way to play games.

The difference in the game of life, is that there is not just one high-score list, there are an infinite number of them.  There are an infinite number of ways to play the game.  We are not just the protagonist of the game, we are also the writer, developer and producer for our game.

So in the game of life, I might want to ask what am I keeping score of?  I might want to abandon the perfectionist mindset that I had playing video games.  I might want to leave the self-manufactured hero mindset that brought me so much success.  I might think about asking for help when I’m stuck because living in vain is not what I’m keeping score of.  Because in the game of life, I’m not playing by someone else’s rules, I’m playing by my own rules.

 

Performance Anxiety

Play is fun.
Performance is anxiety.

Play is inviting.
Performance is isolating.

Play is proactive.
Performance is reactive.

Play is self-renewing.
Performance is draining.

Play has no finish line.
Performance holds a stopwatch.

Play By The Edge

As an artist, you are tasked with the unique calling to play on the fringes.  To journey onto the border of known and unknown .  You are constantly pushing the boundaries and nothing is off-limits.

The unknown is scary.  You will push societal expectations.  You will challenge stereotypes.  You will break molds.  Most will ignore you.  Some will hate you.  Some will love you.  None of which you can control.

The only path that feels right to you is to continue playing.  To chart new territories.  There is no formula on what you might find.  The only formula you know is to get up every morning and play.  The rest is not in your control.

Most of the time you come back with garbage.  But finding something was never the goal anyways.  You just wanted to play.

But little by little the garbage gets shinier and shinier.  And little by little the garbage you collect starts to accumulate to something bigger than you ever expected.

Out of garbage, you’ve created beauty.  Out from the fringes, you’ve converted into the norm.  What was unknown is now known.  What was weird is now normal.  So you do the one thing you know to do: you wake up and play by the edge.