We have forgotten

That we are playing.

That life is play

Play is not just for children

And heaven alone knows they do not get much of that either today

Play is a way of experiencing life

A better way we would suggest

Notice this when you meet people who are fully participating in our modern technological society

And yet they have thrown off its hurried, anxious, mindsets and adopted a more easy-going, playful attitude toward life.

Often they came to this approach after a major illness

After a personal disaster

Something that showed them the emptiness of previous ambitions and preoccupations.

Yet despite not taking it so seriously, they are not detached from life.

They will tell you that they stopped taking life so seriously

They found what was really important

They are not passionless or indifferent

But if anything more involved and more fully engaged in the moment,

Because it is precisely the anxiety of modern life that removes us from the moment,

That makes us feel we cannot afford to "be here now" or to fully engage in whatever we are doing.

Another thing these people say is, "I stopped taking myself so seriously," pointing toward the original source of modern ugliness, suffering, and anxiety in our misconception of self.

The forms and structures of our society conspire to instill a false conception of ourselves

To hide from us who we truly are, but we still have the power to disbelieve what we are told and to reclaim our birthright of play.

Whereas primitive societies naturally fostered adults secure enough and connected enough to live playfully, our own holds us hostage through subtle, omnipresent fears
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And for many this is something they do not even want to consider
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Their lives so important and busy
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The idea that life could be play, a nonsense life is so serious they say
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And that is just it they say....................
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Time to think is life really so serious?
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Need it be?
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Or is it you?
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Do you play?