“Well need I tell you what your homework for the week is to be?!” head doctor says with a coy smile. “Yeah, yeah Play, I will learn to play” I said rolling my eyes embarrassed at my knowledge deficit and humbled at the task of learning such a lesson at 32. A giggle shared gleefully in contrast to the normally emotionally loaded introspection that goes on in that room.
The origin of said homework crystallized a few weeks back at a conference in which a speaker presented a study on childhood development in places of war. In this study the speaker analyzed the importance and subsequent evolution of the three main environments (Home, School, and Play) children grow up in and how development of self is affected when those environments are placed under conditions of duress.
Now I want to stress first and foremost that I do not see any synonymous parallels with my upbringing and a child living next to the Gaza Strip. However once she started speaking the title card of her presentation deck caught my attention in a way I never saw coming. On the slide were three icons representing the childhood environments, thematically illustrated with crayon. Home, School, and Play. Once that slide was on the screen I left the lecture hall for a sec as my mind filled with images of my retroactive Home, School, and Play places and I couldn’t breath. It wasn’t Israel and Palestine, but there was never a cohesive stability in any of those surrounds at a given time during the years that mattered. Now with the war over etc and a peace found there still seems there are lessons to be learned.
The last few years I have had these panic attacks of sorts. Volatile cocktails of emotion that seem to ignite in a second, too fast for me to wrangle with my own mind so instead I escape. The mixology of said cocktail is not easily understood as these emotive back-drafts occur so quickly my internal analytics seldom catch a detail I can hold on to. Occurrences of note: Enjoying the eye candy that is the Rio Population while wasting time on the beach, Enjoying a hipster art fair full of irony and cute furry boys in plaid, and most recently watching a spirited young break-dance troupe literally ‘play’ to the beat.
Back to the three environments a second.
Thirty-two years has brought me well-worn wisdom as to how to feed my nesting needs and curious nature well. First two environments handled, but the play, oh the play. My life is full of goal-orientated activities from running to travel, but nothing that is throw away fun. This I have been made painfully aware.
The other day a friend installed Photoshop on my computer and I sat down to reorientate myself with the toolset as it had been years since using the program. Without knowing I faffed away four hours like it was five minutes with nothing to show but a junk image edited beyond recognition. Throw away fun. I had never felt so calm. I knew at the end of the four hours that I needed more of this.
Whilst talking with the head doctor I realized how the moments that fully restored me were the times I unintentionally found myself ‘playing’. I laughed when I thought of my travels. For me traveling was a goal, a list of cities, a list of momuments, a list of ‘been theres’ to tell. But it was on those travels, when I was alone and away from environments and people I presumed would judge me for playing that I picked up my camera and disappeared an unknown town and away from my head for days on end. The irony being is no one at home or away would ever judge me for playing, I had/have good friends. It was all internal.
All this to say, I think full self actualization and or ‘a path’ can only be known if you are able to fully understand how you need to ‘play’. As it stands ‘playing for the sake of throw away enjoyment fills me with guilt and shame as if I am going to be caught at doing something wrong. I need this fixed.
“So it’s aptly timed that you have the resources and time to play right now” head doctor says, her smile revelling in the serendipity.
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