Having Fun

The conflation of fantasy and everyday reality that makes my world enchanted argues for the importance of having FUN to an adult's continued development. Having fun offers patterns of existential meaning by which adults make sense of their changing world. 

For adults having FUN is clearly separated from everyday reality in that the fun is recognized as a symbolic representation of important features of life. But in my mind the symbols are literal, and through the intuitive interpretation of the world, I allow myself to live the symbols as quasi-realities. Experiencing the world in this fashion is similar in nature to turning every moment into what we call "first time" perspectives. The trick is to continue seeking novelty, even in the most habitual experiences. 

For me, enchantment is easily managed, and the stories I tell myself FUN. This sense of fun provides patterns for healthy growth and continued development. When development leads an individual to the recognition of the distinction between everyday reality and make-believe, continued development must include an aspect of joining these now separate concepts back together in creative, intriguing, or mesmerizing way. 

The meanings gained from the FUN aspect of our thoughts have already become patterns of experience, that is, the unthematized but horizontal schemata for action. The remembrance of having had FUN is incorporated into the enchanted lifestyle of the healthy adult such that as development continues the influence of joy and happiness that arises from having had FUN instills meaningful patterns that remain operative in the significance of the everyday life-world. 

The adult who retains the capacity to experience fun or create fun experiences out of ordinary ones renews the existential meaning of life in a new, fun, and creative way. For adults, having FUN is not merely the inculcation of archetypal or cultural patterns of meaning and value; it involves the creation of meaning and the discovery of value. 

Revisiting Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales happen one page at a time.

          The farcical tales upon which we get our first glimpse of the world teach us about all the painful (such as getting one’s tail cut-off) as well as joyous (living happily ever after) aspects of living. 

          The entire gamut of feelings and emotions that express in some way or other the joys and sorrows of existence surface story after story, page after page, as we make our way through the subliminal emotions that little bears, mice, and curious little children awaken within us.  

      

            Fairy Tales firmly anchor our imagination into the whimsical musings of childhood innocence while manifestly immersing our minds into the very depths of subliminal emotions that grow-up with us as the years fly by.

            Revisiting Fairy Tales is not new … until we actually unleash our mind through an emotive identification of self, empathizing with heroes and heroines, crystallizing our own latent feelings, dispersing our judgment deep within the forgotten forests and, finally, bringing them all right back into focus so that our entire self might extract the essence of each tale and forge, or, in some cases, strengthen, that creative urge we all share to unleash our minds in every conceivable direction… arriving to a place where dreams are born, and time is never planned.  

            Accompanied by Fairies that are so small they only have room for one feeling at a time, Fairy Tales awaken our deepest empathetic feelings, leaving us gasping for air the first time Peter Rabbit sneaks under the fence, right into Mr. McGregor’s garden!

            The land of Fairy Tales is the feeling ground of childhood innocence. The stories weave their way into our subconscious, culminating in the attitudes that flow forth from our own personal existence ~ across the frozen wastelands of the Arctic Circle, past the hillside where the three Billy goats Gruff have long since stood and, then, off toward a land far, far away where a Princess invites a frog to dine, breaks the spell of an evil enchantress, and frees a Prince, her future husband, from a dreaded amphibian enchantment.

            Fairy Tales bring to the surface our intimately personal responses to tragic conflicts and happy-endings. Our dreams and fears unfold in an unavoidable denouement. By the time the stories come to an end ~ and every story does indeed have its ending ~ we have aestheticized our deepest self, which, raised up from the brightest star in the sky, twinkles and reminds us that our hopes lie deep within the recesses of our imagination.

            In the place where feelings are a contagious thing, Fairy Tales bring to light the intricacies of human self-interpretation-in-existence in a creative unfolding; balancing the innumerable modalities of human feelings with a simple lightness of being, and we feel happy to be alive!

            The stories we tell ourselves and each other carry with them the dynamic spark of life, first, in their elementary function of liberating feelings to the realm of the conscious mind, something essential to their advancement and nourishment, as well as in all the other journeys that make up their creative becoming.

           

            Allowing our imagination to run free requires courage, a soothing and calming intrepidness where we gallantly and daringly careen the human spirit toward the sublime.

            Revisiting Fairy Tales is not new ~ but it does corroborate further our hitherto unleashed ideas, brining forth the eminent role of creative self-expression in the Human Condition, by revealing, one page at a time, an essential understanding that awakens our spirits to the importance of feeling so free inside ourselves that the notion of flying is not only entirely and utterly imaginable, it is something we achieve.