Burke, NRPA, and the Importance of a Big Purple Party

Fun is only done right for the sake of fun with no peripheral agendas, hints of business, or underlying purposes.  Otherwise, it’s “fake fun”.  When fun isn’t real, we don’t get the full benefits.

“We need more moments where we’re simultaneously in the zone and feeling ourselves, but not for work.” – Catherine Price; Author of The Power of Fun

Real fun; unadulterated fun, brings us happiness and joy.  We’re enjoying ourselves in the moment, being fully present, without our brains being attached or distracted otherwise.  Experiencing happiness and joy on a regular basis is more powerful than genes, nutrition, and exercise for overall health and longevity. 

Add friends or a group of friendly, fun people and the effects are multiplied.  I used the word “unadulterated” because as adults, we tend to do fun things from time to time, but not fully.  We convolute it with thoughts of things we have to get done, “important” stuff (whatever that is), and other obligations.  Children get fun right.  It’s very important that we do as well.   

After 15 years in the parks, recreation, and playground industry, I had the pleasure of attending my first Big Purple Party by Burke.  Business and marketing sure, but when it was purple party time, that’s what it was.  It was just fun for the sake of fun.  It was observable and apparent in the 1,800 people in attendance. 

Great band, great music, and dancing.  I caught myself a couple of times thinking the music is just a little too loud to have a conversation with someone.  Crazy, right?  It’s like playing pool volleyball, wondering if the water could be less wet. 

This is the playground industry.  We promote play and fun.  Everyone at the party was a professional working in the parks and recreation industry.  It sounds like working in a field with the words “parks”, “recreation”, and “playgrounds” would be all fun and games.  While it’s fulfilling and can be fun, it’s a lot of work, stress, moving parts, red tape, politics, management, organization, delegation, responsibilities, and a hundred other things. 

It was so good to see all these professionals letting go and just having a good time.  We can get caught up in day to day responsibilities and making fun available for others, while we lose track of our own fun.    We all need to recharge, reinvigorate, and decompress.  This is what I saw at Burke’s Big Purple Party.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at next year’s party.

Play hard!

The Human Benefits of Mindless Play

Mindfulness is a popular go-to term these days: “We need to be more mindful”.  Maybe, but it’s grossly misunderstood. 

Mindfulness is not a mind full of chatter, thoughts, worries, expectations, multi-tasking, distractions, perceptions, ego, and a thousand other things.  That is overwhelming and most of us kind of live that way.  We don’t “notice” it, because we think it’s normal, but it does take a detrimental toll. 

So what then?  Mindlessness? 

That’s actually hilarious, but no.  Mushin.  In the movie, “The Last Samurai”, Tom Cruise’s character while being trained in the way of the sword, is getting thrown all over the place, no matter  how hard he tries.  After one of the hard falls, he’s approached by a fellow student, who tells him “Too many mind.” 

“Too many mind?” 

“Hai; you mind the sword, mind the people watching, mind your enemy.  Too many mind.  No mind.”

“… no mind.”

This is Mushin.  Mushin is the Japanese concept of mind of no mind. When a person’s mind is free of thoughts, judgement, fears, ego, anger, and so on during combat, as well as everyday life.  This is acting accordingly to the situation at hand, without the burden of conscious thought. 

How do we do that?  Mindfulness.  Wait … what?

Mindfulness and Mushin are like yin and yang.  YinYang is not about balance between opposing forces.  It’s about interrelated harmony of those forces.  This is the same with mindfulness and mind of no mind.  We cannot be mindful, if our head is full of “too many mind”.  Mindfulness is being in the moment, within reality in real time, as in unfolds dynamically.  Mindful of being there in the now.  Do this so well, we achieve Mushin.

We may not see it, but this is what happens in children as they play.  Climbing a net, traversing a horizontal ladder, swinging, spinning, balancing, sliding, and running while interacting with others.  No adulterated egos, worries, or outside distractions.  They are there.  Completely. 

It calms the nervous system, we uptake and utilize oxygen better, our brains are more powerful (because they’re not clogged up), pain is reduced, sleep is better, concentration, balance, and emotional and psychological health is better.  It keeps us more youthful. 

This kind of play is harder for adults, because we have adult responsibilities, problems, and so on.  True, but sometimes we can allow too much or blow things out of proportion.  So we practice Yoga or Martial Arts, which both require Mushin/Mindfulness to do effectively.  But even in pickleball, if our head isn’t in the game, we’re not going to do very well.  Same with everyday life. 

Mindfulness, yes.  Mushin, yes. 

Be there or be square.

Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash