... or we could have fun

Ian Day puts it in terms of imperfection, and I’ll paraphrase him here: the process is imperfect, and it’s because of the imperfection that we’re able to progress at all.

Abe (who’s sitting next to me here) put in terms of deviation: “We have such solid patterns… but how do we make sure that it’s not all solid patterns?”

The trick with talking about “fun”, or even in creating a space for it, is that it is a matter of creating space—a gap, an opening, a break in the pattern. A flaw, even, in the pristinely regular, so that life can emerge through the crack. We’re pattern-makers, yes, but life glories in openly defying the patterns. That’s evolution, right? A million deviations, each vying for their own next generation.

So when we talk about fun here, it’s in the space of a quick wink across the room—because to even dwell on the subject would defeat the purpose. We can’t methodically deliver our fun to you, nor can we import fun from elsewhere.

But we can make space for fun. We can check ourselves when the rhythm becomes too perfect, and in that moment we can suspend time, for a heartbeat, and in the next we can consciously yield to play. It’s an invitation to curiosity, an invocation of freedom—like parents to ourselves, we gently, fondly, appreciate ourselves for the work we’ve put into building whatever we’re building, before shooing ourselves out into the yard to play.

And that’s a pretty good description of what Abe and I are doing this year. We’ve declared it, loudly, as a year of FUN, shouting mostly to ourselves, to make sure we hear it through the denseness of our own damn minds. :) And even that I say with an inward wink, because yes my mind can be so fuckin’ dense it develops its own gravity, and yes I can have a sense of humor about that, and that is just as valid a door to play as any.

We’ve found already that labeling this year as FUN has given us a filter, and the metaphor there is a direct one: some things just don’t fit through the filter, and the very act of filtering makes us extra conscious of where the life is, and where the life isn’t.

I currently believe that life—at the highest level—is play. If I’m right, then all the dramas and despairs we experience are for contrast, or for relief (in the sculptural sense). And if I’m right, then the “lightward” direction can also be described in terms of straight up, undignified, weird-ass, unpredictable, fun.

P.S. And if any of it ends up looking dignified or not-weird or graceful, it’s because we usually communicate in slow motion—and everyone looks cool in slow motion. ;)