Play (or else)

"PLAY IS NOT ANARCHY" with regards to this statement made in the video we watched, I feel that many adults have lost touch and feel that play is in fact anarchy. I can remember my father asking why i was digging holes in the ground when i was little. He wasn't mad that i was messing up the yard, he thought it was pointless. i really was making a secret cave for my G.I. Joes to have a meeting about the up coming battle of good and evil. But, if i would have hinted that to my dad he would have called me crazy. Fast forward, I now have a daughter who is getting to the age where she will begin hardcore playing and running wild with her imagination, and before we even got this assignment I had been thinking of ways that i could let her know that I'm not gonna judge her or put her down when her innocence runs wild like my father did! Seeing my  little girl play also has making me think a lot about my childhood and I have in recent months found myself (after watching her play) having vivid memories of what my childhood was and the things that i used to do. forever i wanted to be in the Army and be G.I Joe, "The Real American Hero". I used to have die cast guns that were surprisingly real looking. I would get dressed up in my Army camo and put all of my guns into a suit case and tell my mom that i was going to fight the Russians! My friend down the street had 10 acres of wooded land that had a creek and lots of under brush. We would stomp around the woods for hours and have fake war! I can remember to this day some of the scenarios that we would make up. His grandfather would take us to the Army surplus store and we would buy anything and everything we could afford. Some things that were especially cool that I remember were MRE's (Meals.Ready.to Eat) and also, we would by patches that his grandmother would sew onto our uniforms. One was a tank unit patch that said, "Hell on Wheels". Play was very important to me as a child and is very important to all children. 

That being said after watching the video a few things struck me. Ideo's van that was a conference room was way cool. Googles  complex is awesome and I'm sure thats why companies like that foster very high creativity and positive work. Also when he was talking about role playing I totally agree with him. I am a person that considers role playing to be way outside my comfort zone. I don't know why but it is and I feel that if I could learn to maybe let go a little bit more and not have the fear of my peers laughing at me then I could maybe have better or stronger ideas.

PLAY TIME:

Well, its raining so I decided to do a couple of things that I enjoyed playing as a child. I went all around the house and grab the pillows and made a huge pillow fort. and as i was creating the fort I had a strange memory of being very very young and watching my brother building a pillow fort. I remember how in awe I was when I saw this thing come to life and thinking it was like our own house!!!! I remember telling my mother that I wanted to live in the pillow fort for the rest of my life! seriously! What a concept! then I grab my daughters coloring book. When I was little i used to color a lot. and the one thing that I remember doing is coloring everything colors that they could not normally be like a purple dog or a red tree. I used to grab any color and just draw, this is exactly what I did. I found this at first feeling somewhat odd. Coloring things that a certain color is what is right. but is it? As I colored the dog purple I started to imagine cartoon dogs and that led me to think about the Jetsons cartoon which I had not seen in forever which, led me to to think about my very first babysitter. This brought back memories that i have not thought about maybe ever. She had a big front yard that was lined with fur trees and under one of the fur trees was a huge rock. we I used to take hot wheels rip offs and pretend that the were rock climbers robots and make them climb the big rock. Which i plan on driving by the house before class today to see just how big that rock really is. 

Playing to me really helps realize that i should not take everything so fucking seriously. I see all these pencil pushers everyday that stay in their comfort zone and don't do anything out of the ordinary ever. I mean not that I do crazy stuff that jumps starts my creativity all the time but I do look out to other things that might not be so normal or everyday. I've always been somewhat different but in recent years I have let my guard down and conformed a little bit more. I do however see what I don't want to end up like and by doing the exercise today feel that I have learned a thing or two about myself.  i have had lots of memories and emotions that I have not felt in years come up. Some good and some bad but mainly I have remembered what I was like as a child and what some things I can do to not grow up. -Bradley E. Moore

Anybody ever heard the Decendents song/album called, "I Don't Wanna Grow Up"?  and yes its spelled Decendents!!!!