PLAY IS THE WAY

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What if you found yourself to be the only sane person that you knew of in all the world. Its not a great situation to be in. If everyone else is insane and you say that you are not insane, they are all going to think that you are definitely insane, besides the fact that with everyone else insane, things are just going to get crazier and crazier. Of course, hopefully, there are some small percentage out there that are also not insane, but how to find them?

Isolation is the condition, and we are not wired for isolation. we need each other, we need connection, warmth, love, to be understood, or we will suffer. but that singular sane person is going to feel very alone. One of the cruellest punishments is to put someone in isolation, as they do in prisons.

In a world in which you must pay to enter, live in, and to leave, there is a life-long urgent need to have a constant flow of money. This puts everyone under strain, duress, and stress. It takes the fun out of life. It makes everything very serious, divides humanity, and drives a lot of people crazy.

There are those few who find a way to have a steady and sufficient flow, enough to alleviate much of the stress, but often it is done at the expense of others through some form of exploitation or corruption, and this creates monster parasites that “flourish” amongst us, in the form of business men, banks, corporations, and criminals/ politicians. Some make it like a game, like the game monopoly, and manage to have fun with it.

But to succeed in business is almost as difficult as growing coconuts in Vilcabamba, Ecuador and it can be like a prison sentence, where one must toil many hours of every day, and to fail is not that much fun, because the consequences can be so extremely dire. Due to the seriousness of this condition, we lose the joyful quality that life offers, and only children who enjoy a certain amount of freedom can experience this joy through their constant play, or until they must hunker down and endure the boredom of their daily childs prison, called school, or until they realize that they too, must forgo their play to find a job in order to survive or possibly thrive.

This makes them serious and the art of play, becomes lost in the sobering reality of capitalism.This explains to some degree, how it is that we lose the ability to play. This is tragic, because it is quite possible that “play is the way, ” And everyone goes insane, having forgone play for work, joy for seriousness, which is highly unnatural and sad. Music is so popular and gratifying because it is a form of play, as well as are all the arts. And I firmly believe that having an artistic outlet is a way to maintain ones sanity.

Our community of Vilcabamba, Chambalabamba (chambalabamba.org) is based on this idea to some degree. If you can recall when you stopped skipping as most all children do, this might be the time that you began to lose your sense of play. It often occurs at the onset of adolescence. How do we regain our sense of play? It might be the way to regain our sanity. That is what I would like to know. All original ideas are welcome or even non original ideas.