{"id":818,"date":"2013-01-08T20:06:29","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T04:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=818"},"modified":"2013-01-08T20:06:29","modified_gmt":"2013-01-09T04:06:29","slug":"becoming-more-spontaneous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=818","title":{"rendered":"Becoming More Spontaneous"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of a number of chosen missions in life is to help people re-own their own natural potential for spontaneity and their capacity for exploratory playfulness. As Allee and I write in <em>The Art of Play<\/em> (which we\u2019re presently re-writing), spontaneity and playfulness not in itself childish. Although its roots begin in early childhood, and it gets stifled in mid-childhood and beyond, in fact imaginative playfulness, like dancing or singing, could well be cultivated and channeled throughout life. (Yes, that might require a more enlightened culture, but that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to help happen!)<\/p>\n<p>If the thought occurs to you, \u201cOh, I can\u2019t be spontaneous,\u201d what you\u2019re really thinking underneath that is that if you make a mistake while you are loosening control you\u2019ll make a fool of yourself. But this is a misunderstanding of your social context. If you associate with others who are being spontaneous also in a setting where that\u2019s what\u2019s up, you\u2019ll be granted room to fool around. We\u2019re all exploring, so let\u2019s be forgiving of ourselves and others, and expect that others will be similarly generous in spirit. (If they aren\u2019t, then&#8230;. then we just won\u2019t play with them! It\u2019s their loss!)<\/p>\n<p>You see, you are in fact being spontaneous all the time in small ways. It\u2019s subtle and if you don\u2019t think about it you hardly register that it\u2019s happening. Some people are more consciously free in giving impulses free rein when it does no harm. Even a \u201cbear with very little brain\u201d (as Winnie-the-Pooh is sometimes described) is un-self-conscious enough to dare to make up simple songs, words and melody. They\u2019re not impressive, but they\u2019re cute. <\/p>\n<p>My work is to offer you in writing both ideas for how to play and the theoretical justification for this activity. I hope to offer you the means for you to give yourself permission to experiment with your life, make up how you\u2019ll dress today, improvise. Of course kids don\u2019t even need theory to justify their foolin\u2019 around\u2014they\u2019re, like, entitled. I\u2019m just saying that we are too! Take care of business, then enjoy yourselves. <\/p>\n<p>This is close to a kind of meditation. Instead of containing it as a thought or image that you register or ignore and let go, let it come through your body-mind and act it out in a setting where others are also improvising. Both ways involve a goodly measure of surrender blended 2\/1 with responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>The art of becoming curious about and cultivating your own spontaneity can take many forms\u2014cooking, dancing, poetry, art, and some elements are mixed in with more deliberate activities, like gardening or home decorating. Sometimes it works best in solitude, sometimes it works better being around others doing their own thing, sometimes spontaneity emerges as one interacts with others as you play together or collaborate in some activity. I think a lot about imaginativeness and spontaneity, and am open for questions that might help me make it clearer for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of a number of chosen missions in life is to help people re-own their own natural potential for spontaneity and their capacity for exploratory playfulness. As Allee and I write in The Art of Play (which we\u2019re presently re-writing), spontaneity and playfulness not in itself childish. Although its roots begin in early childhood, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,25,11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foolin","category-play-and-spontaneity","category-literacy","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}