All quotes from
Stuart’s book
The ability to play
is critical not only to being happy, but also to sustaining social
relationships and being a creative, innovative person.
Play is a very
primal activity. It is preconscious and preverbal -- it arises out of ancient
biological structures that existed before our consciousness or our ability to
speak.
Play is a state of
mind rather than an activity.
People who had the
most cognitive activity (doing puzzles, reading, engaging in mentally
challenging work), the chances of getting Alzheimers disease were 63% lower
than that of the general population.
If we stop playing,
we share the fate of all animals that grown out of play. Our behavior becomes fixed. We are not interested in new and different
things. We find fewer opportunities to
take pleasure in the world around us.
Play can become a
doorway to a new self, one much more in tune with the world. Because play is all about trying on new
behaviors and thoughts, it frees us from established patterns.
True mastery over a
lifetime comes from one's internal play compass.
For all of us,
"entering the forest where there is no path" and discovering our own
path is an essential part of the transformative experience.
As with many things
in life, often the problem is not the problem, the problem is how you react to
the problem.
People reach the
highest levels of a discipline because they are driven by love, by fun, by
play.
The body remembers
what the mind has forgotten.
Play, by its very
nature, is a little anarchic. It is
about stepping outside of normal life and breaking normal patterns. It is about bending rules of thought, action,
and behavior.
Following your bliss
may be difficult, demanding, uncomfortable, [and] tedious at times.
Your current
feelings about people, things, and activities are rooted in the emotions you
previously experienced and forgot in the natural amnesia of early life.
You can't be truly
open to spontaneity if you don't feel comfortable testing novel ways of
expressing yourself.