11th Avenue two friends imaginary and real

Some of us don’t have enough of the kind of friends for which we have always longed. By sharing some of these exercises, or by adapting them, can we go out and make friends, gently using everything we have gathered? Can we expand play into the realm of social engagement more often?

Have we abandoned play, stopping making friends and even meeting new people? Now we have a new job: making real and imaginary friends. Now maybe after years of following the same habits either because of a change in circumstance, a lightening of work loads, or a shift in focus at home, we find out that it's time to make new friends with whom to play. We set out to make friends with whom we feel comfortable expressing playfulness. If play involves others, and we lose the thread with which to begin, we may choose to play alone with imaginary friends. These exercises can encourage making bridges to forming new friendships with people with play potential.

Consider that these friends have to believe certain things about the world. Playing with them reveals these beliefs, which I call secret truths. These secret truths ground us deep down. I think we play because we know these things deeply. Part of letting go of our playful nature includes forgetting what we know.

Playmate Exercise # 1: Listing Our Truths

Consider what truths still hold from childhood about the world. We imagine our self as naive, but I think we know truths. Then consider our closer circle of friends, real or imaginary, and what they hold up for us as basic truths about the world and our community. Choose a large enough surface to make a chart. Group people together. Group them by shared belief. Draw this pattern on the surface. This sets up a constellation. They connect to each other because of a shared truth. Like stars they form a constellation. Like stars they exist at varying distances. The distance can make them unrelated to each other. They seem connected from our view of point. We may want to stop and play with this idea for a while. The surface has another side to start new patterns. The varying distance of stars does seem to offer a way out of other dualities when we might feel stuck. Now add in people we feel drawn to include some close, some further away. Make notes about connections based on truths or values, or experiences like laughter. Create a laughter constellation or a silly constellation, or a mischievous constellation. The members don’t necessarily know each other. Add in missing bits that intuitively belong in the constellation.

If I take my friends, a list emerges. They teach me to value my ideas and my humor. Over and over again not just once, they remind me that what I offer helps them live playfully. They remind me what I once knew, that we connect as friends and acquaintances, not as strangers. And they remind me that when we give a child a problem to solve the child sees truths, the secrets that we buried. I have scattered two of these truths from friends though this avenue. The line begins with an initial and the verb teaches.

L teaches me that I can love everyone fully and deeply. The myth of a limited amount of love reflects a falsehood, and our hearts can remain open most of the time. I say most because sometimes we have to check internally for a sense of balance.

R teaches me that I can keep on stretching and speaking up for what I want and that the universe arranges itself in such a way that what I want fits together with my community’s needs and that these fit together with the needs of other communities linking the world community.