1.3 You get to take play deeper, then deeper still
I’m sure you’ve heard this advice…
Go back and recapture your childhood sense of play.
It’s well meaning, but there are two big problems with it. And they’re modern problems.
First…
The play of children in our time is much diminished from what it once was.
It no longer has the depth of significance and meaning it had for our hunter–gatherer ancestors.
Second…
Lots of us did not have playful childhoods.
So going back there doesn’t help.
For example, large numbers of kids are traumatized by abuse or neglect. And trauma kills the spirit of play. And blocks the healing it could bring.
And then there are kids who get shut down. In the bleak Calvinist church I grew up in, we were taught to follow strict rules. We were not allowed to be spontaneous or make our own decisions. Play was suppressed. Which had long–term negative consequences.
Is there an answer to these problems? Yes, and it’s a great one. It starts with this fact…
Play is the superpower of human development.
The key word in that sentence is “development.” Play is developmental. Children use play to make progress and grow their abilities.
But as adults we can do something special…
We can develop play itself.
We can upgrade it. We can reclaim the power that play once was for our ancestors.
But then we can do better.
In our hunter–gatherer days, play was focused on the needs of the group. People did not do deep divers into their personal psyches. That would not have been tolerated, because it would have broken the unity of the tribe and threatened the very life of the tribe.
But now we’re living in a time when we can do deep dives. We understand the deeper dimensions of human psyche in a way our ancestors never did.
Which means…
We can take play deeper than ever.
Whatever level of play we experienced as kids, we can deepen it and grow it and make something more of it and make it what we need it to be.
As adults, because of our years of life experience and because of our (hopefully) greater maturity…
We can grow our powers of play.
And keep growing them.
That means we can use play strategies to deal with the toughest issues in our lives no matter what our age.
What I like best about what I call primal play is that it’s a partnership of…
Serious work and serious fun.
I spent 20 years coaching nonprofit leaders on their toughest issues. Some of my favorite moments happened when we broke the spell of struggle and switched into play mode. Here’s just one simple example…
Ginny was at her wits end with Brad, the first director of her agency’s newest program. She called him a “puzzling pain in the butt.”
She had hired him into a great job, so why was he giving her attitude instead of gratitude? She had tried different communication techniques with him to no avail. Argghhh!
In our coaching session, I said, “I’ll be you and you be Brad and let’s see what happens. Let’s not solve anything, let’s just play.”
In a flash, she dropped her super–responsible leader persona. She got into the character of a puzzling pain in the butt. And she was good at it. She said whatever popped into her mind.
We got goofy and then goofier and in the middle of her laughter, Ginny suddenly stopped and said in a calm voice, “Oh, I get it. I bet Brad’s in over his head with this program and he’s scared and taking out on me. I bet he doesn’t even know he’s scared.
“It’s suddenly so obvious. I can look back and see so many clues over the past few weeks. I’ve been too mad at him to empathize with him, so I couldn’t really see him.
“Now I know what I need to do. Now I can be his ally instead of struggling with him. And I know I’ll like myself a lot better this way.”
It turned out she was right on all counts.
Of course play is not right for every issue or situation. Sometimes you just have to do the hard work of problem solving. But whenever I see a chance to play my way through a problem, I go for it.
Now let’s come back to writing. It’s a skill as well as an art, and to learn any skill, to get to mastery, takes diligent effort and persistent practice. There’s no getting around that.
But as you get better…
You get to play more and struggle less.
Even in the earlier stages of developing your writing, you can use play strategies to lighten things up and have more fun with the hard parts.
And what’s really cool is that when play kicks in, you get to do…
Problem dissolving.
Like what Ginny did. She surprised herself into a breakthrough and the problem suddenly disappeared.
This can happen in writing as it does in life.
One of the problems play can dissolve is despair. When you’ve been struggling with your writing and you feel beaten down, instead of pushing yourself to try even harder, you can call on the power of play, and watch it dissolve your despair and bring your spirit back to life.
And it can do this because…
Play is kryptonite to despair.
In this book, I’m sharing with you what I’ve discovered so far about primal play. And if you start using it in your writing, as you make it your own, you’ll be surprising yourself.
You’ll make discoveries which I hope you’ll share with the rest of us.
Now let’s dive in. Oh, and by the way, no need to read the chapters dutifully in order.
Each numbered section is a stand–alone. So feel free to bounce around. Check out whatever calls to you in the moment. There are no shoulds here.
What I hope is that you’ll find yourself…
Playing with primal play.
