afterwords:::16:::hanging-out

**Playtime

The twelfth assumption about play focuses attention on our need for a certain amount of playtime to sense we have enough time to play. We teach our self to think of time as standardized and incremental even when our experiences disprove this expectation.

Remember playfulness amplifies the flow of time. A lot can get done and it seems like time stands still, other times nothing happens and the whole afternoon slips by gloriously.

Sometimes the best time to play is when we squeeze it in right before leaving for somewhere else.

And then there is hanging out. Consider the period of time in adolescent development when “hanging out” eclipses active play. Time slows down. Consider hanging out as a subspecies of play and also a subset of rest. Consider it as a period in our development when we sort out complex social connections. During this hanging out time, we integrate much of the socialization imperatives placed in childhood. We deal with profound inconsistencies in our family and community. We mythically prepare for our adult quest and we sadly become convinced that we have to do this next developmental stage without playing, without the benefit of our imaginations, without crucial inner resources (a thirteenth assumption.)

Some people don’t lose play when they hang out. Most of these people get labeled as outsiders in some fashion; called on some level peculiar. Embrace the peculiar; creative reordering resurfaces in everyday activities. Those that have moderate amounts of creativity left can suppress it much of the time, though find with encouragement that it easily returns. Those that have little easily forget that they ever had access to the realm of play and comfortably live without it.