five pieces, and what they reveal: the second one

this might be a blank piece. Maybe that would be why someone else doodled here. Imagine this in white ink on white paper; and you have a marker in hand. I offer a visual doodle with lattice and stone. Is that cheating? Can you cheat at playfulness?


Sometimes we learn something by repeating it over and over. Playfulness links any tedium we experience with some other physical, mental or spiritual activity. We engage our own definition of the quality of repetition so that we observe and value the give and take of the process. The act becomes personal.


I return to drawing marks on a surface: I am not a doodler,
that’s the concern here. I would delete this piece and start again, but if I do that I will do it a little later. I doodle with materials, with objects that are cast off or lost. So if you doodle…..

Repetition Exercise #2: Doodling(using our hands as we listen.)

Take a spot and doodle for a while a repetition of points and lines and shapes, probably while attending to something else. I asked John if I could have his doodle after a meeting we attended. Some people better focus their auditory attention while doodling.

Set it aside, do some more; and look at it again later.
Try it as a bookmark. Use any shape or size.
Repeat the process on the other side. Doodle over doodles.

As close as I get is a tally card. I repeated marks to try and track a pattern about something else. In the process I didn’t use the same marks, but I did repeat the basic action of putting marks in their columns. I definitely can see the repetition in this process. I like the regularity and the irregularity of the pattern.

When faced with repetition, I immediately shift and set up some slight transformation. The way I play acknowledges the need to repeat while simultaneously altering the act, object or notion. So my playfulness enters as the response to the implied need for repetition.

Collecting similar objects strongly represents repetition. Here, too, in my collections the gathering reflects play because of the attention to the slight variations. These make the act engaging. I definitely play in the playground of the subtle novelty seeker. Discoveries and new ideas litter the path.

[I seek novelty.
(Two ideas catch my attention. One gets lost.)
Four types of personality factors come to mind.
Novelty seeking holds one corner.
Balance that by a need for familiarity.
This places soothing on a continuum between familiarity and novelty.
Seek soothing.

Stimulation is also present.
Sensation seeking represents a similar process as novelty.
Something can be stimulating in the subtlest ways.
So the novelty can express itself in pattern variation
rather than in strong physical experience.
Loud sounds and fast rides represent the common course of novelty seeking,
though dissecting difference could be novelty as well.

That quality pulls my attention.
Could someone else find a roller coaster soothing?
Does novelty and soothing intersect playfully?
A connection surfaces; does it relate to repetition?
I like to figure out how things connect.

Overhearing someone named Mark talk today,
speaking words about being a connector;
part of his endeavor includes making heart connections.
Does that have anything to do with repetition?
The link eludes me.



Do we connect with the heart?
Is that where soothing and stimulation meet?
Better walk around the block; walking and blocks lend themselves to repetition.
The blocks are building blocks from childhood.
The walks loosen a knot of thoughts that confound me.]