Classes in Fun and Games

There's a lot to learn by playing games.

Once you begin to see the connections between theater and children's games, you begin to appreciate the wisdom contained in their playful dramas.

Gather a group of fellow grown-ups, especially playful grown-ups, play a little, talk a little, play a lot, talk a little more, like this:

Play a kids' game together. Talk a little about the theater of the game - the play and interplay of roles. And then about the "drama" of the game, as if the game were really some kind of theater piece - especially about the drama you and your friends experienced, personally. Not so much about your own, personal drama, but about about the drama of the game itself, about relationships, about the way of things in gameland.

As you play and talk, play and talk - some kind of healing, playful, loving wisdom starts manifesting itself. Because you are grown-ups playing these games. Because of the growing honesty and openness and depth of sharing grown-ups are capable of, just the act of playing each game reveals a depth, a drama more profound, more personal, a truth more mutual, more freeing.

"I have learned to see children's games as scripts," I write, "for a kind of children's cultural theater. I see them as collective dreams in which certain themes are being toyed with - investigated and manipulated for the sake of sheer catharsis or some future reintegration into a world view. They are reconstructions of relationships - simulations - (myths) - which are guided by individual players, instituted by the groups in which they are played or abstracted by the traditions of generations of children."

Play pointless games, for the fun of it. Talk about the games as if they were works of art. Talk about the fun of it, about the dance of it, about the theater of it, about the truth of it.

Let me know if you want help getting started.