Are You Afraid to Laugh?

Cheap Laughs

Laughter and jokes and play are undervalued in our serious adult world.

We think of all of these as entertainment, just a way to escape the stress and burdens of a threatening world which weighs us down.

Do you ever feel like you’re carrying more than you can bear? Laughter picks up […]

Why Are We Afraid to Play?

Childhood’s End? “Stop fooling around!”

Did you ever hear that from a parent or a teacher?

Maybe you ignored it and got into trouble. Or, more likely, you eventually listened, and stopped.

But that wasn’t the end of your desire to play.

You probably still like to play in some way. Although you probably don’t […]

Caution: Shape Shifters at Play

Play As a child I loved to play, and I still do. I’m never so happy as when I’m playing with my children. When we play together, we let go of many of the rules that pretend to define us and shape us, and leave us free to explore.

When adults use the word play, […]

Too Playful or Too Serious?

My oldest daughter once gave my wife and me a simple personality test. Miriam loves personality tests. Yes, I find them intriguing as well. I love the idea of finding patterns and predictability in the wonderfully wild and unpredictable world of people and how they behave. But these tests only model a person’s behavior, and […]