One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, 
One nod of the head, then turn around, keep moving. 
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, 
One nod of the head, then turn around, keep moving. 
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, 
One nod of the head, then turn around, keep moving. 

Man and society are resurrected every moment in the act of hope and of faith in the here and now; every act of love, of awareness, of compassion is resurrection; every act of sloth, of greed, of selfishness is death.*
Erich Fromm

*From Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope.

First, pay close, foolish, even absurd attention to things. Then allow their structure, form, and nature to set the limits for the experiences you derive from them. By refusing to ask what could be different, and instead allowing what is present to guide us, we create a new space.*
Ian Bogost

*From Ian Bogost’s Play Anything.

If you keep telling people who they are, who their best selves are, if you keep reminding them of their true identify, there’s a good chance they’ll figure out what to do.*

*From Rob Bell’s What is the Bible?

And when okaying a game, the question is not how to overcome that structure, but how to subject oneself to it … the play is in the thing, not in us.*
Ian Bogost

*From Ian Bogost’s Play Anything.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.*
Henry David Thoreau

The first thing I learned is that what a seed looks like depends on what it does to survive.**
Austin Kleon

*Henry David Thoreau, quoted in Austin Kleon’s blog: What does a seed look like?;
**From Austin Kleon’s blog: What does a seed look like?

Bring light to all that is overcast.*
Plotinus

*Plotinus, quoted in John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty.

Once time is a resource to be used, you start to feel pressure, whether from external forces or from yourself, to use it well, and to berate yourself when you feel you’ve wasted it.*
Oliver Burkeman

Every playground has two basic properties, which are two sides of the same coin: boundaries and contents.
Tim Bogost

Our perception of time alters when we are playful, rather than only being serious, with the contents and the limitations of our lives

Rather than something we possess as a commodity, time becomes something we inhabit.

*From Olive Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks;
**From Tim Bogost’s Play Anything.

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.*
Mary Oliver

The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.**
John Maeda

I am grateful for all those who words feed me.

I hope my words feed others.

This is a worthy challenge.

*Mary Oliver, quoted in Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing;
**From John Maeda’s The Laws of Simplicity.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is the power to choose our response.*
Viktor Frankl

We have to work with reality, including the reality within.

The five elemental truths identify our limitations:

Life is hard
You are not as special as you think
Your life is not about you
You are not in control
You are going to die.

I often suggest humility, gratitude and faithfulness as the means for playing with reality:

Humility to be our true self (which is a growth strategy)

Gratitude to notice all that we do have

Faithfulness to playing with these in imaginative and creative ways.

Slowly, we enlarge the spaces in which our choices can be made.

*Viktor Frankl, quoted in Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing.

Your inside person does not have age. It is all the ages you have ever been and the age you are at this moment.*
Anne Lamott

*From Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything.