What if All of Life Was Play

"This is the real secret of life - to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play."― Alan Watts

Image by Rainer Maiores from Pixabay

We have a tendency to compartmentalize our life into buckets.

One bucket is for our careers. Another may be for exercise, and another may be for play and reserved for those special moments like family time, vacation, or the occasional bender.

We put self-imposed limitations on what we regard as fun.

What if all of life was a game?

What if all of it was play?

What if the situations that plague us, and those that bring us immense pleasure were just fleeting experiences?

This is how I view this game.

Picture a stadium and two teams playing.

The A team is comprised of joy, happiness, beauty, pleasure, and any other feeling that is regarded as positive.

The B team is comprised of grief, pain, sorrow, jealousy, envy, and any other feeling that is regarded as negative.

Both teams are in a constant battle. It’s the heaven and hell within.

We have elements of both A and B teams in us. To exhibit these emotions is a symptom of being human.

However, there is something behind these emotions. There is another entity that is also us, in a form that isn’t limited by our earthly senses.

This entity is the stadium where teams A and B play. The stadium does not have a vested interest to win the game, because it realizes without it, there is no game to be played. 

The stadium is YOU.

This way of thinking has allowed me to sit back and watch the chaos and calamity of life ensue with a different, and perhaps healthier perspective.

The stadium is able to observe the game and realize that the outcome is irrelevant because, like all games, they are meant for play.

The stadium represents LOVE. It sees both teams as a part of it. For both teams, it’s their home stadium.

I've learned to love all the beautiful and fucked up things that happen in the course of this short trip.

It’s helped me make peace with the loud voices in my mind that want to stay in the past and the other ones that are blind to today and perpetually seeking tomorrow.

At times, I am finding that these voices are even silenced. I imagine this is what many of the self-realized contemplatives have tried to tell us in their own way.

The stories we tell ourselves are inevitably our biggest challenges.

You can’t really escape them. Instead, live with your joy, sit with your suffering, laugh at your mistakes, enjoy delicious food, and sweat as if your life depends on it.

The stadium and both teams are part and particle of you.

With every beautiful moment or challenging obstacle, enjoy it and smile, because…

…this too shall pass.

“Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.” — Voltaire

With Love,
Anand