Play Time: RPG Truths Revealed
On a serious note, were you once a child? Did you spend hours with siblings or friends passing the hours playing with toys, making up games, or obsessing over random strange objects just for the fun of it? “Make believe” was always the term I remember being used to describe these moments outside of reality. As an adult I like to call it “being in the moment” or “living in the now.” As a mother, I gain an incredible amount of inspiration and peace just by watching my two little ones create, and find joy, in the day-to-day moments.
The challenges of being a “grown up” mostly, in my perspective, I find comes from our deep fears and meaningless ambitions. Our desires to be accepted or be approved of by our fellow peers, family members, etc., and the constant voices telling us what we should do, or be. A child has none of this. They only know they are here, alive, and that they feel and think things that only they are aware of based on their own experiences and deep intellects. They aren’t concerned much by what others will think of them, or how others will see them as they develop into who they just are, as themselves. They have open minds and empty cups. In my opinion, this genius we are all born with, this sense of “being enough as you are,” is the beginning of all creation and. in a sense, the beginning of freedom and joy in one’s life.
“Play time” is the first thing an animal or human does after birth. The deer will stumble, fall, get back up and soon frolic across the green grass full of joy and pride in its newfound freedom. As children our first bursts of laughter are always either “peek a boo” or someone making a ridiculous silly face, the act of creating in the moment, that we find so funny and fascinating. 
When someone takes time out of their day to be authentic, real, alive, unafraid and trustworthy, these are the first moments that bring us to life as a new being in this journey we call life.
As adults our term “play time” has been transformed from “living in the moment” to “seizing the moment,” two very different realities in my mind. Simple pleasures of “being” are no longer honorable or okay. One must “conquer,” “one-up,” or “become greater than” in order to feel worthy of life, love or acceptance. What shame and sadness this has brought to us all. The act of just being alive has been taken from us, has been raped, degraded, made less than, even so far as to be made hated and despised.
So. as a player of Dungeons & Dragons, I look around my table and I see grown adults, honorable humans, who are perhaps outcasts of their societies, the “minority” as we so often call ourselves, and I can’t help but see all of us as heroes. The ones who have stepped beyond the limits that society and social status place on us. We, as the children of our planet, have advanced to the point of allowing that “true reality “to sweep us away into the nethosphere of thought and creation without the fear of judgment. The other world of time and space as most know it. To be together once again, eye to eye, without distractions, to be brave enough as to accept who we are as humans and not only accept who we are, but share who we are as we think and feel for ourselves.
D&D has been the only true “play time” I have had as an adult with other adults outside my deep relationships. It’s the game time that brings us back to “make believe,” the game that helps us remember ourselves as more than ourselves. The only limit we hold for ourselves is the limit we create in our minds. We truly are who we think we are and who we are can be many things, in many places, in many different times. Does a child truly see anything different? As this is true, why do we become trained as adults to see anything else? Come back to the now, be in this moment and capture what it is that makes you happy, alive, and full. D&D helps us embrace that pattern of life. So find your friends, be open to the “now,” never let the ideals of what others believe is “right” drag you away from your life, the life that is ultimately YOURS! I hope you can find the same joy in Dungeons & Dragons that I have found.
Stay nerdy, much love to you all!
Related articles
[amazon_link asins=’B00DC3ROWE,B01LZ55MS2,1613771568′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’nerdarchy-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’59e50692-f96a-11e6-b808-35e6ea34ddc8′]
No Comments