Heroes Not Zombies

It’s many years since I was walking around Aix en Provence and came across this ball lying against the kerb. I could have just walked by. After all, what’s so remarkable about a ball just lying in the street? But I didn’t. I crouched down at the side of the pavement and took this photo.

The ball is the centre of attention. I know about the “rule of thirds” in relation to picture composition but I decided this time to make the ball sit pretty much in the middle of the shot. But it’s not just a picture of a ball. It’s a ball in a totally empty street……which really gives the impression of an abandoned ball. I don’t know if the ball had been abandoned or if some kid had just left it outside their house while they had their lunch, but in this particular framing this image still captures a real sense of abandoned play for me.

At this point in our pandemic (it’s January 1st 2021 as I write this) a street like this looks like the “new normal”. I’ve been seeing streets like this for about nine months now. So, now that I return to this old photo it has a new, topical relevance.

But I want to return to the ball itself today, because what is the purpose of ball like this, other than to be something to play with?

I know we are going to have to develop new behaviours, make different choices, change our lives in the face of this pandemic, but I’m going to suggest to you today that one of the behaviours we could do with a bit more of is “play”. I don’t mean that in a trivial way. In fact, I think play is greatly under-rated. Babies and children learn and develop most of their key, lifetime skills, through play – they explore, they press what they can press, push what they can push – I saw a little video of my smallest grandchild opening his first ever Xmas present. He’s not a year old yet. But he immediately spun whatever would turn, pushed whatever buttons would go down, popped a ball into a hole……he just constantly tried out everything. It’s this kind of play we need to cultivate I think and that is going to require –

Wonder – if you can keep in touch with a sense of wonder, not only will every day have something in it to delight you, but you’ll remain curious, you’ll keep wanting to explore. We will find new ways of living through our capacity to wonder. Lose the sense of wonder, lose the ability to invent new ways to live, lose the ability to make sense of this world.

Humility – getting down to a child’s level is a way of having a “beginners mind” – a way of countering any arrogance of knowing it all. We never know it all. That’s just not possible. Unless we retain a sense of humility and acknowledge that we can always learn from our experiences then we just aren’t going to progress. One of the things that frustrates me most about this pandemic is what seems like a systemic inability of politicians to admit they didn’t get things right, to acknowledge that they could have made different choices. Without the ability to do that, they can’t make better choices next time around.

Joy – how much do you let joy guide your actions and choices? Researchers into the neuroscience of emotions, and many philosophers over hundreds of years have shown us that joy is one of the most powerful emotions and drivers in the human psyche. You can see that easily in children. If it’s not bringing them joy, they soon let you know! And, yes, I know, joy is not the only emotion, and can’t be your only guide. I’m just suggesting that there’s a benefit in becoming a bit more aware of brings you joy, understanding why that is, and then feeding that into your decision making.

Imagination – I sometimes think this our superpower. We are literally the co-creators of our daily lived experience and there is no way we could do that without excercising our imaginations. We can’t think ahead without it. We can’t experience what anyone else is experiencing without it. We wouldn’t have memories without it. We couldn’t create without it.

I’ll leave this post with those four things. I think these are four things related to “play” and I think we are going to need them all in spades as 2021 unfurls……

• Wonder
• Humility
• Joy
• Imagination