Let's Play

I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to say that my life has been lived in action mode.  Each adult transition has centered on how I will prepare for the next stage of development.  If I were truly playing the game of LIFE, I would be on the upper tier seeking a fortuitous route to finish the game with the biggest house, a perfect family, the correct car and lots of savings in the bank for....

For....

The game ends once those goals have been achieved.  Now I ponder my shift in living a life based less on action and more on reaction.  It's all about the journey is starting to make more sense.  It's partly instinctual and culturally demanded that young adulthood is spent seeking the means for survival.  The virtues of creative living extolled in childhood dissipate when we cut the apron strings and start the race toward a mundane existence.

As I listen and read excerpts from today's youth, I wonder if we will have another cultural revolution such as the 1960's.  Dissatisfaction at all levels of society (not including the super rich) is gaining traction.  We do not sound and act as a happy people collectively.  Plus, the definition of happy is not something that all of us can agree on!  How long can society maintain this angst?

Our mindset of "all work and no play" makes for unhealthy bodies and disturbed psyches.  We've started diminishing play in early childhood education and continue doing so throughout the schooling process. Our college students enslave themselves with outrageous college loans that leave them locked out of the playground of life...who can play and relax knowing that they will spend the better part of adulthood paying for a degree that can't pay for itself???

Play.  In these hectic times, we're asked to pray, not play...Rome might burn.  But the stressed out, keyed up version of humanity looking back at us in the mirror might need to do more when it is down on its knees asking for answers.  Seeking truth and guidance is admirable but how can we hear the answers if our brains are buzzing with stress?