When playfulness seems impossible.

Everyone has a different level of “playfulness”, or how playful they feel as they journey through life. It’s likely associated a bit with happiness, but there are certainly many happy people who lack the tendency toward being playful, and many who are not particularly happy but can be playful.

Still, for the playful among us, the level of playfulness felt varies on a constant basis. Sometimes there are pretty good reasons for not being playful. Like when you finally decide it is time to put down your old, dear dog. But other times there are not really good reasons, and we just feel sluggish and mopey. Or, there are reasons that we think are good, but we just haven’t realized how much choice we have at the interpretation of these reasons.  These types of situations are what I would like to talk about today, by introducing you to The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander.

 

 

The book is a peek into what life could be like , if we decide to choose how we react to the inevitable challenging situations that we find ourselves in throughout life. What one person sees as a trap door into depression, another may see as sudden insight into a new perspective. I know what you are thinking: another “glass half full” book. But this cliche doesn’t come close to capturing the delight in the possibilities that you will discover when you read the book.

What the Zanders do in The Art of Possibility is describe their approach to the challenges of life that most people might consider dissapoitning, dissasterous, humiliating, or destined for failure. Instead of prescribing a half-assed “see the glass half full” regime, they change the game completely. In fact, they help us remember that all it is, indeed, is a game.

Consider Chapter 4: Being a Contribution. In this chapter, Benjamin shares with us his shift in how he viewed the “successfulness” of his life. Growing up, life in little Benjamin’s household was measured in achievements. The youngest of all the siblings, the lowest on the totem pole of spelling test scores and science project ribbons, he was caught in a dichotomy of success/failure. What didn’t go well was a clear negative. What went well was a clear positive. But this lead to a lot of anxiety, a lot of misery, and a lot of winners and losers. Everyone measuring themselves against everyone else. At this point, many “self-help” type authors might give you an antidote to see the silver lining, or see the glass half full (perhaps by proposing you remember all those times you were successful). But the Zanders have adivce better still. Why not do away with success and failure alltogehter, and see you life as an opportunity to make a contribution?

Suddenly, possibilities are everywhere.

Rethinking “Disability”

If you have never been introduced to the world of adaptive sports, now is the time! Let me introduce you to a few famous adventurers.

That’s Warren MacDonald (above). He’s an environmentalist, mountaineer, and climber. And inspirational speaker. And double above-the-knee amputee.  (Oh, and by the way, if this image inspires you, you can get one for yourself in poster form.)

This is Erik Weihenmayer (above).  He is an adventurer… the only blind individual to climb Everest, and one of the few people in the entire world who have climbed the Seven Summits (the highest peaks in all 7 continents). He is also an author and motivational speaker. And the mountaineer behind the amazing documentary Blindsight.

This fellow is Kevin Michael Connolly (above). He was born without legs. Kevin’s a world traveler, photographer, and mountaineer. And skier. And very very funny, as you can see from the trailer for his book.

These folks (and countless other adaptive adventures) do more with their days than many “able-bodied” folks do in a lifetime. Which really raises the question of what we mean when we use the word “disabled”.

According to Merriam-Webster, the first definition of “disabled” is, “incapacitated by illness or injury.” I haven’t done a research project on this, but it seems that when most people conceptualize the idea of “disabled,” their perspective on what it means to be incapacitated involves something missing. Physically. Maybe a limb, maybe something related to perception (e.g., sight, hearing). And, for most people, the prospect of loosing a limb or sensory perception raises a good deal of anxiety. As in, “However will I find my missing TV remote if I can’t see/can’t walk?” Panic!

However, being “incapacitated” is not based on a limb count. Or having all “five” senses.  Warren, Erik, and Kevin clearly move their bodies and pilot their lives in ways above and beyond many “able-bodied” people. Being incapacitated is about how you live. It is a mind set. Do I choose to get myself out there in the world and experience life, or not?

Kevin Connolly sums it up well on page 171 of his book Doubletake (which is excellent, by the way). He says,

“As I interpret the word ["disabled"], you are only disabled if you are incapable of overcoming the challenges presented to you in any given sitation. I might be disabled when trying to haul a hundred pounds of concrete up a flight of stairs, but to my mind, I’m perfectly able-bodied when I am skateboarding around New York City. Being disabled is also a matter of choice. Anything that you try to hide from the world also imposes a limit on you. If you don’t want to risk showing off your wobbly knees or clumsiness on the dance floor and decide to sit on the sidelines, than you are unable to dance. Thus, disabled.”

Right on.

 

Resources

National Sports Center for the Disabled

Paradox Sports

Adaptive Sports Center

Adaptive Sports Foundation

American Association of Adapted Sports

 

Learning to bring Play back to life with Exuberant Animal

This is an exciting week for the Movement movement indeed! Frank Forencich and co. of Exuberant Animal, pioneers in the play-based physical activity world, have released a series of short video samplers to show you how to bring play to your “workout”. If you are a fitness instructor, personal trainer, gymnast, martial artist, exerciser, or someone who loves to move or wishes you loved to move, watching these are an excellent way to get going.

For the cost equivalent of a day pass at a climbing gym, two martial arts classes, or an IMAX screening of the latest 3D monstrosity, you can gain permanent access to view the videos online at your leisure. You won’t be disappointed. In fact, you’ll probably end up enjoying yourself just by watching. The folks demonstrating the activities in the clips are clearly enjoying themselves.

Frank and his team present how-to’s for 12 of their many movement activities, along with a series of inspirational and informative video essays explaining how our modern world is a mismatch for our physiology and psychology (aka the Primate’s Predicament) and what we can do about it; on functional training; on integration (of brain, of body, of mind and body, of spirit, of environmental context, of tribe);  on social neuroscience; and (my favorite) on the importance and power of play.

Curious? Intrigued? Wait no more; you can view these videos here. And as you watch, be sure to catch yourself smiling along.

Example of Play in Adulthood

Children don’t need to be told how to play. Sometimes, though, adults may be at a loss to imagine ways to make play a part of their day. This clip is a great, obvious example of physical or exercise play among two adults. Are these guys getting more or less out of their movement than they would in a “traditional” form of exercise? I’ll let you decide!

(Psst! For more, visit Darryl’s website, The Fitness Explorer. Thanks, Simone Johnson, for sharing this with me!)

When what you love to do meets what you are good at

“97-Year-Old Dies Unaware Of Being Violin Prodigy”

So reads the headline from The Onion (you can see the article here). Onion headlines make me chuckle, but they always have a strong underlying element of truth. In this case, how many of us harbor talents for things we never even tried? What if Mozart had never been exposed to the piano? What if Tiger Woods’ parents had sent him to baseball camp? What things might you be good at? What pursuits have you never tried or even considered?

This tendency to not try things (and, hence, never know whether we are good at them or even enjoy them), stems in part from our beliefs about our own intelligence, creativity, and aptitudes. Usually, we underestimate ourselves because of a host of factors including our culture’s approach to education. Sir Ken Robinson talks about this in his book The Element. I have been a fan of Robinson’s since I saw his TED talk a few years ago. He’s terribly funny and absolutely spot on when it comes to what he studies: creativity and human potential. So when I saw a copy of his book  at a book store over the weekend, I picked it up and dove in headfirst.

The Element is about finding the intersection of what you are good at doing and what you love to do. Sometimes this isn’t exactly what others have in mind for you. Robinson gives many examples of people who were bored at school, or dropped out, or were kicked out of clubs because they didn’t fit in or were not perceived to be talented enough.  Paul McCartney didn’t make the cut for the Liverpool Cathedral choir. Elvis Presley was denied membership of his high school glee club. Mick Fleetwood, drummer of Fleetwood Mac, is by most musicians’ standards musically illiterate. I won’t give away all of Robinson’s examples, but there are many along these lines.

One of the points Robinson illuminates is that, had these musicians subscribed to what others told them regarding their talent, just like the 97-year-old violinist from the Onion, they would never have delved into that which made them happy.

So how do we decide what things to try? When we are young, this is usually decided for us by parents and teachers. But after a certain age,  monetary and accessibility factors aside, we usually decide based on what we think an experience would be like. But it is premature to decide what your experience of something would be like without trying it. Actually, it’s what we call prejudice. And your prejudice is probably wrong.

In my own experience, actually trying something provides a completely different experience than what I’d expected. When I was younger, a friend’s brother started rock climbing. I remember very distinctly thinking that this seemed like a stupid thing to do as visions of the opening scene to Cliffhanger came to mind. But much later, when I was in my late 20’s I happened to try it. Climbing turned out to be nothing like I’d expected, and visions of Cliffhanger were replaced by a budding understanding that climbing was more like yoga or ballet than like weight lifting or having a death wish. It was more about puzzle-solving than muscle. Real climbers are graceful and agile.  As well as incredibly strong. Stallone didn’t really portray that quite right, and until recently, I’d viewed climbing the way he portrayed it. Too bad for me, maybe I would have started climbing earlier in my life.

My point, and one of Robinson’s points in The Element, is that we cannot know whether we are good at something or whether we will enjoy something until we actually try it ourselves. Regardless of what others might tell us to expect out of an experience, and regardless of what we ourselves expect out of an experience.

You could, sitting right there as you are now, harbor a passion for playing the violin. How would you know?

Alan Watts: The Universe and Play

The universe is playful. A snippet from Alan Watts.

Kids’ toys and creativity.

I’m in the middle of Susan Linn’s book Consuming Kids. It’s an enjoyable, informative and sometimes horrifying account of the marketing-to-kids industry. Yes, that’s right – marketing to kids, who have no disposable incomes of their own.

Apparently, marketing to kids is a pretty effective way to make some major corporate cash for a few reasons. First of all, the very young ones are easily persuaded because they cannot understand the abstract concept of persuasion. The idea that someone wants you to do something for their own selfish motives is just not cognitively processable. So they don’t realize they’re being had. Kids are also attracted to glitzy stuff. Toys that go beep and “do” things like dance or talk. They are also attracted to the back stories marketers develop about their products to fill the 30 second commercial slot. These back stories make kids identify with the product as a character, not as a toy.  This is potent stuff for a little being who is learning to discern fantasy from reality. With all these means of tugging at kids’ developing identities, marketers poise kids to unleash what is known as “Pester Power“.

Ask (50 times) and ye shall receive.

One of the tragedies of the marketing to kids industry is that, of course, the main goal of the companies is to make money. To make money you need to sell a lot of stuff. And to sell a lot of stuff you have to utilize planned obsolescence. To utilize planned obsolescence with toys you have to make toys that can only do one thing.  Herein, my friends, lies the kernel of the tragedy of the kids’ toy industry.

I want to connect the dots a little here to illustrate how this is problematic for individual well-being and, indeed, individual happiness.

First of all, let’s get on the same page about the existence of a great number of toys out there with one “role” (the whole planned obsolescence thing). You already know these toys are out there, and quite common, if you have talked with a kid recently about a new toy. “What’s it do?” he or she will ask.

So here is an examples: planned obsolescence with Legos.

Let’s look at Legos. I loved Legos when I was a kid. Why? Because you could make anything. But no longer do Legos come in an assorted heap of potential. These days, they come in kits. I went online to Lego’s site to pick an example. First, you are taken to a menu where you can pick with which cross-marketed story you want to play.

Lego shows us a good example of the cross marketing they do with the movie industry. Movies provide kids with the backstories and character identification... Legos provide the kids with a chance to act it out at home. Seems innocent enough... or does it?

I’m a woman in my 30s which makes Johnny Depp more appealing than Daniel Radcliffe, so I clicked on the Pirates of the Caribbean icon and was catapulted into the world of Johnny Depp in Lego form. And, oh, what treasures I found there! Here’s a screen grab.

This is a pretty good example of a product that has a backstory and a pre-scripted role. The product contains props from a specific scene from the movie. I know because I've seen it! This kids will have seen it too, and they know exactly what is supposed to happen. Oh, but if they forgot, there's some text there at the bottom to remind them. "Can they manage to stay upright and still stop the Flying Dutchman... from scuttling away with the prize?" Well, I forget, but I'm guessing "yes" since there was a sequel. Or three.

In the main picture box is the product I’m learning about. To the left are all of the Lego products that capture the plot of Pirates. So of course, designing toys along these lines encourages kids to feel that they “need” all 8 kits to have everything needed to reenact the Pirates of the Caribbean story. (Oh, by they way if you do buy all 8 that will cost you $371.92. Plus tax.)

So imagine that you have enough spare change to fork over $400.00 for your kids’ interest in running from Lego cannibals and blood-thirsty mermaids. Money aside, why should you care?

Wait – let’s go even further – violence aside, why should you care? (There is another vast literature on violence in the media and childhood development. That’s an important issue, but in my opinion not even as important as the one I’ll be addressing here).

OK, maybe you got it from the post title: “toys and creativity”. But how does all this kit production affect creativity? Let’s see…

Kids are masters of imitation. That is one reason humans are so successful at learning. Imitation is one of the main ways kids learn how to do things. Because of this, regarding everything from language to actions (e.g., hammering a nail, constructing with Legos), kids really like to do things “right”. They are also fascinated with rules. If you’ve worked with kids, or are a parent yourself, you know this. So when there already exists a blueprint of what something should look like, kids want to get it just right. Want to test this for yourself? Sit down with a kid and a Lego kit and put something in it’s “wrong” place. The ever-preceptive kid will correct you, just as they “correct” themselves. “No! Jack Sparrow goes over here with the Wheel, he doesn’t climb into the ship yet!”… for example.

What this means is that kids with toys that have pre-defined roles or scripts become stuck in what psychologists call “functional fixedness” – they so closely associate an object with it’s “correct” function that they cannot conceive of a novel way to use the object. Functional fixedness is pretty much the opposite of creativity, and being so fixed is going to ultimately lead to an inability to be playful, an increase in feelings of boredom with their scripted toys, and as they travel into adulthood possibly an overdrawn bank account (as their only means of being entertained will be to continually buy things they quickly tire of.)

And finally, creativity is positively associated with happiness (e.g., Pannells & Claxton, 2008). What that means is that people who are more creative are happier.

So essentially, kids with an over-abundance of toys with predefined roles will ultimately be less happy than kids with fewer of these toys and/or toys with no predefined roles (e.g., cardboard boxes and markers).

Savvy?

New Review of Green Exercise

A new scientific review about the benefits of green exercise came out this week! The full article is peer-reviewed and published in Environmental Science and Technology. You can view a blurb about the article in Science Daily. In a nutshell: outdoor (green) physical activity appears consistently more beneficial compared with indoor physical activity for mental health improvement. Less is understood about differences between outdoor and indoor environments regarding physical improvements or in maintenance of (sticking with) the physical activity.

Risk Taking and The Five Fears

We talked about the importance of incorporating a certain type of risk taking into your life in the last post, Creativity and Letting Go,  the type that Stephen Nachmanovitch talks about in his book Free Play. There’s one other thing I want to talk about regarding risk taking more generally, and it involves the other four types of risk taking. And it involves the Five Fears (as discussed by Buddhists). So first, the four types of risk taking (the ones that psychologists typically assess) include:

1. Physical Risk (e.g., bungee jumping)

2. Financial Risk (e.g., gambling)

3. Social Risk (e.g, ignoring social norms)

4. Health Risk (e.g., taking drugs, smoking)

And now, the Five Fears:

1. Fear of loss of life /of death/ illness.

2. Fear of loss of livelihood/ of financial security.

3. Fear of loss of reputation/ ill-fame.

4. Fear of unusual states of mind/ dementia.

5. Fear of speaking before an assembly/ of public speaking. (So… if this last one seems out of place, you’ve probably never had to give a speech, presentation or recital. If you have done this, you know that it can set your sympathetic nervous system in full swing).

Lewis Richmond has a wonderful, more in-depth discussion of them on his website if you’d like to know more. Basically, though, these Five Fears are the Things That Keep Us Up At Night. When we can’t sleep and find ourselves churning over the same thoughts over and over and over… the thoughts, worries, anxieties we have then are about getting sick or losing our job or losing a friend or dying or an upcoming presentation. Never do we lie awake worried over something not covered by that list of Five.

But now, here’s the really interesting part. Whenever we exhibit risk taking behavior, we engage heavily with these fears. That is, when we gamble (Financial Risk) we face fear #2. When we go bungee jumping (Physical Risk) we play with #1. And so on… but as any parent with a high schooler can tell you, we usually engage in these risks when we are young. Like in high school or college.

So the question that I have been pondering is… Why do we as young folks deliberately engage in behaviors that risk the very faculties we worry about losing when we are older?

Images from shanghaiist.com and blog.daniellelacey.com

***

Just to be super transparent with my thought process, here is how each risk taking category seems to overlap with the Five Fears.

1. Fear of loss of life /of death/ illness - Physical Risk Taking

2. Fear of loss of livelihood/ of financial security - Financial Risk Taking

3. Fear of loss of reputation/ ill-fame - Social Risk Taking

4. Fear of unusual states of mind/ dementia –  Health Risk Taking

5. Fear of speaking before an assembly/ of public speaking. (This one does not overlap exactly… but it is most closely aligned with the type of risk taking discussed by Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play, and address and recommended by myself in the previous post).

***

Acknowledgements: the initial idea for this post was inspired by Nachmanovitch’s nod to the Five Fears, on page 135 of Free Play.

Creativity and Letting Go.

Risk taking is an interesting topic. Usually, when people talk about risk taking they are talking about teens taking drugs and playing strip poker and having unprotected physical relations, all while talking on the phone and driving. Not good ideas, indeed (well… mostly; I’m going to revisit this idea in my next post, so stay tuned!). And, if you want to assess an individual’s personal interest in risk taking using psychological measures, you might give them a risk taking survey that breaks risk taking down into 4 factors: physical risk taking (e.g., bungee jumping), health risk taking (e.g., taking drugs), financial risk taking (e.g, gambling), and social risk taking (e.g., intentionally ignoring a social norm).

But there is another type of risk taking that isn’t addressed with that assessment survey (quick side note: if you are really interested in that survey, send me an email and I’ll give you the citation). This type of risk taking is, I would argue, actually essential for having a fulfilling life. And so little is it discussed that it is difficult to categorize. Intrigued? I am!

This type of risk taking is the type that Stephen Nachmanovitch discusses in his book Free Play, which is probably one of my favorite books out there about Play. Nachmanovitch is a professional violinist. Wait, make that a professional improv violinist, so much of what he writes about pertains directly to the violin. But almost all of what he writes about is also easily applied to other aspects of life (as he himself explains).

He talks about the importance of risk taking for creativity. In a nutshell – creative endeavors ultimately fail when we are too afraid to take risk. Here are a few quotes to give you a quick idea of his perspective:

…[W]hat most clogs creativity is fear.  p 182

Writing, playing, composing, painting, reading, listening, looking – all require that we submit to being swept away by Eros, to a transformation of self of the kind that happens when we fall in love. p 164.

What this means is that we have to “let go” of the worries and anxieties of how things might turn out. And to tie this in with another quote…

The whole difference between construction and creation is this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. – G.K. Chesterton, as quoted by Stephen Nachmanovitch, p 166.

… it is the essence of what differentiates creation from construction. Worry too much about how things will turn out, and you are constructing. Immerse yourself in the process so intensely that you feel swept away, and you are creating. In other words, push things to the brink of failure, and that is where the magic happens!

When I was in art school about 10 years ago, I constructed. I could not “let go”. Which, looking back, is probably one of the reasons I couldn’t cut it. I was so worried about being critiqued that I was stuck on the idea of doing things “right” and I couldn’t leave room for error. And it showed. So I know what it feels like to resist. What it feels like to look over the edge only to shrink back and look for safe way down. Challenging this directly by rock climbing has helped. Tremendously. I’m still working on it.

If you were one of the millions of people who saw Black Swan recently, this “letting go” is exactly what the artistic director Thomas tries to convince ballerina Nina to do. A technically perfect performance with no mistakes isn’t necessarily the best performance. It’s a little like reading a speech – the words might be perfectly chosen, but good luck convincing anyone of your argument. To truly be great, you have to first develop good technique… but then you have to let go of it. Good technique with no letting go makes your performance or creation (or life) feel scripted.

So – why the need to first develop good technique? Can’t we all skip the music scale drills, the climbing systems board, and the repetitious drawing of cardboard box still lifes? After all… the artist is within us or it isn’t, right? Well… We can thing of it this way: letting go is a little like the moment right before a train derails. By letting go we create a suspension of the direction of fate, during which no one knows what is going to happen. Will there be a crash? Or will the artist keep things moving? Technique is what you need to have to draw on to keep the train just barely on its track. And that process is what will keep the audience breathless. To keep them on the edge of their seats, wondering if a crash is inevitable. No technique to draw from and you will never be able to sustain that suspension of fate. But without letting go of technique, you will never be able to suspend it at all.