Not too long ago a friend and I were chatting while perusing an antique store. We discovered a mutual interest in stories previously and the topic of, if you were to create a movie show, what would the story be? Amid admiring old jugs, 1950s hats, and records, we started to dream up a story concept that, if counseling doesn’t work out for us, my friend joked that we should make this TV show. Since then we’ve talked about this story concept, and that has surprised me–I didn’t think that this story concept would survive for long.

Perhaps my cynicism is due to my failure in sticking to my stories. Things sound great, you have a concept, and then it fizzles out for a variety of lame reasons. What has struck me though, is my friend’s enthusiasm for this story. She already has great energy and talking with her has reminded me of when I was kid, back when I let myself be swept away by the crazy stories I could come up with. Back then I occupied a creative space of unfettered imagination and was totally unselfconscious and bold.

I was reminded of something I heard before, something about the importance of play. And out of curiosity, I googled the importance of play in adults. Apparently, there are a host of benefits to incorporating play into one’s life, those mostly being improvement in physical and mental health. There’s a book that sounds interesting by Stuart Brown, M.D., “Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul”, which you can find at the National Institute of Play website.

There’s nothing wrong with playing and brainstorming wild stories, if anything, it’s necessary in bringing some joy to adult life. Life has been feeling somewhat heavy lately, and stepping back to just be and play with thoughts and ideas for a minute helped.

So, sometime this week I’m just going to play with some story ideas, and not be so serious and uptight about it.

I hope you can do the same, and reconnect with the way you used to find joy and feel free.

Pax 🙂