I listened to this talk by the muse Alan Watts the other day and in it he says that in the West, we view the purpose of life as work and that we use recreation as a way to recover in order to be ready for work again. He says that play is purposelessness. I love that.

I think too often we think of play as being vacuous–having no soul and avoiding the tough issues. Over the last few years, I have tried pretty intently to create products that represented how tough the work is, how rigorous the systems were, and how strong I was.

I remember meeting somebody at Impact Hub Oakland and telling him that with Emotional Self-Defense, I wanted to create more Gandhis and MLK Jrs in the world. He look puzzled and said frankly to me, “I don’t think you’ll be the one to do that.” Ouch. Even recalling it, it hurts to think about it, because, damn it, I believe I can be.

However, when I pause a minute, I think what he may have been saying is that such an endeavor sounds incredibly serious, and he doesn’t get the impression that I’m so serious about life. Actually, many people have told me similar things–a previous girlfriend who thought I was just the player type and didn’t realize I was so deep; a participant at a training I ran in Europe who said she didn’t think I was tough; a participant the next year at the same training who said the same thing.

I have been fighting and fighting to prove that I am tough, and funny enough, people still see me as playful. What I realize now is that I can be serious, I can be tough, I can be strong — but I start with play.

Play is the way that I bring people into an interaction. It’s my strong suit. No, it’s my big fluffy suit. It helps people feel comfortable and helps them open up to things that are quite deep. I’ve been fighting it and, lord, it is a slippery foe. Well, time to give it a nice hug, with a few awkward pats on the back, and let it move through me, because, frankly, it will do so anyways.

What’s your big fluffy suit?