Desperate Play

There is a quiet, simple joy that comes with knowing that within us there is an antidote to all ailments. I know, that sounds like a preposterous assertion. But, think about it for a moment. Plausibly, the Universe has created a balancing agent, that restores equanimity, and encourages creativity (expansion) to go on, impervious to the slings and arrows of Life. Like everything else, we are composed of the stuff of the Universe, and thus contain within us, the power to go beyond where we have been before, and actualize wholeness wherever we are.

I forget what I know, much more often than I remember. I guess the compelling nature of human life baffles me just enough that I get distracted. I begin to believe this is all there is. In this kind of delusional moment, I forget where I’m from, and where I’ve always been. My earthly endeavors begin to take on a gravity of their own, and I fall sway to a weight that goes with the illusion. I lose some perspective while taking on another vantage point. Then, I am susceptible. I think I am bounded by the gravitational pull of the conventions of this time and place.

I labor under the weight of this place’s expectations. I get torn by the feelings that I am supposed to be one kind of man, while I am another. I now have an invisible disability that exacerbates the ones that can be seen. All of this adds weight, enhances the pull of gravity, and compresses my attitude, leaving me a lump of human protoplasm distorted and quivering. It isn’t fun to be so burdened. Worse yet, it isn’t even near the best I can do. I suffer from the potential I seldom get to use.

Firmly, under the sway of earthly and societal delusion, I trudge through life, like a good soldier, or a good cog in the system, forgetting what is within me. I even have trouble admitting to myself that I might be depressed. All I can muster is a metaphor of journeying through an arid landscape. I have begun to despair. The larger life that had really spawned me, has been reduced into a desiccated incoherent lump. I am thoroughly human, a victim of existence, a forgotten spark of the primeval light.

I am desperate. I know I am here because there is more to the story. I just don’t remember what. There are lots of stories. Divinity, if you believed everything said, is everywhere. But re-experiencing it is another matter. Stories, even the genuine experiences of others, don’t help. My desperation, is not for an uplifting story, its for a visceral unfolding. I want to be part of the flow.

Desperation, the emptiness of some aspects of life, has driven me back. I am turning once more to an old friend of mine. Oddly, this old friend is me. In some form of youthful instinctiveness, the old childish me used to perform powerful rituals by merely playing. I think I became human, the Divine child taking form, through play.

I had to get thoroughly lost to find myself. It took years. Now, I’m coming to a new place. I am once again lost at sea, bobbing in the great ocean. But now, I’m scarred, I’ve worn the rigid mantle, become the quintessential, followed the herd, felt the blistering of aloneness, and become old. Play frees me from the predictable me. I get to be what I don’t know. I am becoming again, only this time, there is no one, but myself, to guide me. I don’t have to to make sure I stay between the lines, be scored against anyone, or told what to do. When I begin to think of the things that assail me, like strange playground equipment, I get excited not depressed. Challenges are opportunities. Life looks and feels different.

Suddenly, falling and failing, has a new complexion. I’m beginning to have a more satisfied attitude. One that looks forward to what the day brings. I haven’t fully integrated this new/old awareness or attitude yet. I’m still in the phase of not completely believing it. Play is altering the way I’m encountering things now, and I’m enthralled with the experiential learning that it is provoking.

Maybe the aridity of some facets of my life drove me to re-discover what I already knew. I’m Lucky, that could be possible. But, I think that play is an aspect of the creativity of the Universe — that is within each and every one of us.

Play with that idea for a while.