Play and wu wei

I haven’t given myself much time to play recently. Imaginative play, where you let your mind have fun and follow its leadings, is the fuel of the artistic life. If you start cutting off your playtime, then soon you will be left with an empty well. The creativity will temporarily dry up.

We don’t play well when we’re carrying a major negative burden around with us. For the last week, this has been shame for me. Someone said to me “shame on you” for something that I thought was a well-intentioned impulse of mine, and it has left me in a state of confusion and sadness. I guess this is what happens with positive punishment—it shuts you down and doesn’t give you any direction on what to do. I have noticed my lust for life disappear. When we feel ashamed, it’s hard to feel playful. You almost have to give yourself permission to play, and when you are ashamed, you don’t feel that you deserve it.

One of my favorite lines from Julia Cameron is “paint is great gooey stuff.” I like it so much because she is reminding us to return to our childlike state of wonder, just for the sake of it. It is a playful way to approach painting. I wonder if the Taoist term wu wei, which translates roughly as “not doing,” “not meddling,” or “not trying,” refers to this play-like state of mind. Wu wei is not saying stay home. It’s saying show up with your paints, but approach it with no end in mind. Approach it just from a state of childlike play.

I wonder what would happen if I took this approach of wu wei play to everything that I do. Coffee is not for waking up in the morning but for dunking tough cookies. The dishes are meant to be beautiful little soldiers standing tall in the dishwasher. Driving is a fun time to see new things, to experience the vast expanse of the blue sky, and to let random ideas float into consciousness. Animals are fun because they are soft, bouncy, and they smell wonderful. People are fun to work with because they are smiley, charismatic, funny, and weird. What if we appreciated everything in this way for its own sake, rather than using everything as a means to an end? And if we are using things as a means to the end, what is the end, exactly? No, really—what is the end? If it’s our own happiness, which seems to be the end that everyone is pursuing, then couldn’t we be happier if we were more like the other animals—soft, bouncy, playful, and living in the moment? Maybe the absence of worries and the intense focus on the joy of each moment is the closest thing that we can get to happiness. I want to be like an elephant who trumpets in excitement upon my reunion with my fellow elephants. We have learned so much from animals, but we seem to be missing the main point that distinguishes their existence from our worrisome one. That point is the wu wei of play.