Child's Play

The unfettered heart

I played outside a lot when I was a kid. Our backyard was my kingdom and stage and storybook. There was a freedom in creativity then. Halfway through a make-believe storyline you could say, “and then a giant-ass dragon shows up.” Then all of the sudden you and your crew of good guys (because there must always be good guys) have to fight a giant-ass dragon because that’s what was said and what was said then becomes reality. At least that’s how it works in the reality of make-believe.

In the middle of fighting that giant-ass dragon, you realize there are monsters on another planet that pose a higher risk than said dragon. So you pivot, get on a space ship (because one of those is always available and ready), and fight monsters on another planet. It’s a perilous endeavor. The monsters are some of the worst you’ve ever encountered. Slimy, many-headed, taloned, green monsters with razor sharp teeth the size of a small human. Suddenly you get a call from earth (the president of the United States to be exact) informing you that your mom has been captured by pirates.

Your space ship broke down when one of the slimy, many-headed, taloned, green monsters threw a different space ship at it. So you do the most logical thing which is to lasso up a horse named McGorfin and ride him back to earth so that those dastardly pirates can catch your hands. Once you’re back on earth, though, you realize they don’t have your mom. That was just a lie to get you back to earth so you could go through their 8 tests of strength and agility. After a turbulent go of it, you get through the 8 tests and discover along the way that you can fly and make yourself invisible. Beaten, battered, scarred, and ruffled, you make your way back to your mansion which just happens to be a 100-room treehouse in the sky.

All before lunch.

My youth.

Creativity in my youth was constant and pure. I was often alone but rarely lonely because I created entire, intricate, nuanced, and fleshy worlds in my head. Whole storylines would unfold. The bad guys had names and sinister intentions. The good guys were me and my crew. Day after day I’d weave in and out of these storylines. There would often be several going at the same time.

Those weren’t sticks I collected from the park but swords. The broken stationary bike was a hovercraft. The tree was my hideout. Everything existed for the sole intention of being repurposed by my spongy little brain.

Nowadays I don’t long for childhood, certainly not to go back and relive any of it. There were some painful points in those years. Whatever flashes of nostalgia hit me are never enough to entice me back. However I do ache for something. I long for that childlike lens of play. The make-believe. The imagination. The world creation.

Day after day, I indulged in the vast expanse of limitlessness that lay before me. In the long, slow sunsets of summer, I would live out innumerable lives. As the weather got cold, the dragons became snow demons and I still remained the hero. Not one thing was off limits. Not a single moment existed without my making it. It wasn’t special or out of the ordinary. It was so commonplace that I felt more connected to the worlds of my little boy brain than the world outside my little boy body. I was the bravest I’ve ever been back then.

Today I long for the unchained, unbounded, unrestrained beauty of creating things never meant to last. It was a time before the dark forces of adulthood crept their way into the world of make-believe. It was a time before Insecurity and Productivity wrapped their angry hands around the imagination and squeezed. Long before I felt afraid to make things or guilt for making things or shame for wanting to make things, I knew only that vast expanse of limitlessness. I knew only how to make. There was no thought beyond the thought. There were no feelings other than disappointment when it was time to go inside.

Now it feels like anything I do create must go through the nasty little editor man that lives in my head. I find myself strategizing about my career. How can this thing be put to good use? How can this essay/script/poem/episode/movie/play/blog/podcast move my chess piece down the board? Is it new and original and marketable and popular and serviceable? Will it get me more followers or the attention of someone who matters? Will it get me an Oscar or an agent or money? Will this creation optimize my standing in the algorithm?

Grind culture will always rear its ugly head.

Suppose for a moment that I’m able to ignore these productivity questions. I’ll probably be plagued by other questions. Am I selfish or lazy or privileged because I want to make frivolity (or high art or a manifesto or a magnum opus) in a world that seems to only darken by the day? How can I fathom spending time and energy making something when the weight of human suffering gets unspeakably burdensome moment to moment? There are scary forces moving throughout the world that seek only destruction. Am I ignorant or just useless? Thoughtless or greedy?

When these thoughts throw back their heads and scream, I think about that child’s heart that (hopefully) still lives within me. What would it look like to tap back into that heart, if only for a moment? What would that little boy have to say about these big, giant, unanswerable questions? I think maybe nothing. He certainly wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. But what he would be doing is sticking his hand out deep into the center of things and playing. He wouldn’t think or say because thinking and saying is boring and that’s what grown-ups do. Besides he’d be too busy making. He would play because it feels good and it feels natural. It feels like the exact reason the stick is there and the broken stationary bike is there and the tree is there. He would create because there was (and is and always will be) no other option except nothingness. I don’t want boring, grown-up nothingness. That looks a lot like death to me. The world has enough of that as it is. I want the stick and the bike and the tree. I want to stand tall as the hero of my own story and see only the vast expanse of complete limitlessness that lay before me.

I want that for me.

For you.

For the whole of humanity.