Alternative styles

People who deeply enjoy life, play more and rest more.

If I hadn’t read it somewhere, as conclusions from scientific research, I could have said it myself.

Does that mean that if you’d like to enjoy life deeply, playing more and resting more are helpful?

I think that is the case. I see how ‘play’ and ‘rest’ are powerful catalysts for (self-) development.
However, there may be a little bit more to it, since the words ‘ play’ and ‘rest’ have many meanings and the most common understandings among adults of it, are not the ones I refer to here.

Even the concept of ‘ more’ is multi interpretable.

Play:

I described the concept of play, as I see it, once in another piece of writing like this:

This form of play really has to be understood as a completely different phenomenon from the understanding most adults have created about play.
For a  4 – 6 year old, the aim of play is, with serious intent, to explore life (deeply, fully, without holding anything back !) and getting to understand his/her own role in it to really know (which is something different from being told by others) what and how (s)he can joyfully contribute to the wellbeing of the whole.

S(he) doesn’t play for amusement, as play is often interpreted by most adults. (Although the sense of pleasure derived from it is surely an appreciated and motivating side-effect of it)
A young child is not using play in order to relax, or lift up a mood. It is the exact opposite of desiring to escape the demands of reality for a moment! It is the most effective way to explore and shape reality and build up useful skills and expertise along the way.

You may think:” But there is nothing at stake for a child!”
Think again and you’ll appreciate, the quality of his/her life is at stake.. as well as that of the people s(he) gets involved with, now and later on in life.

Rest:

Rest, in the eyes of many people is ‘ complete relaxation’. Containing sleep, or doing calm activities like reading or watching television.
And as much as those activities contribute to unwind, in this context, it is not the type of rest I think is meant as a powerful catalyst to (self-)development.

Rest in this context,  is not meant to unwind ‘ from reality’ (as the prime objective) but to transform, with reality.

I call it me-time, those periods of time where a person disconnects from all activities and being actively in contact with other people ( and strong energy emitting devices).
This may seem ‘ semantics’. But to me, it isn’t.

In having me-time, I may be stepping actively away from the part of reality, the e-scape that surrounds me, the outside energetically influences I am tuned into (consciously and unconsciously!).
In me-time, however, I am fully allowing my inner e-scape to transform and I am not stepping away from that process with my attention at all.
I watch it, observe it, see the transformation unfold. See how the e-scape changes, shows itself to me in another formation.

Yes, a sense of relaxation, of losing tension in my system is a nice motivating and re-energising side-effect of it.

More:

Play more and rest more.

More can be viewed as: if you take the sum total of any amount at the start and then increase that.
So, if you rest 3 hours a day, 3,5 hours is more.

In this context, I would say, it is not the actual amount that is significant, it is the frequency.

If you normally rest 3 hours in 2 stints in a day. When you then rest only 2 hours, but in let's say, 10 minute stints each, then 2 hours is more then 3 (smiley),... more effective!

Alternating frequently between play and rest.

I chose to alternate consciously highly frequently between play and rest.
After 20-30 minutes of activity (relating to the e-scape outside me, by taking input in and/or giving output out), I have a break and step away from it. Rest to transform.

Yesterday I had a day where I did it religiously, mainly because I had quite some ‘play’ planned using my computer and that is a challenging e-scape to play with, in itself.

Taking a break, religiously, after 20-30 minutes of play.
When the sand rests... it is time for me to rest to.

It was fascinating to see how in each and every single me-time break, even the 5 minute ones, my inner e-scape transformed and showed me my reality change in another formation: in formation.....information.

What happens is that, all the elements that are there in my reality, seem to automatically re-arrange their positions in those ‘ breaks’ in an alternative formation once the tension of staying focussed on the task at hand is released. 

In staying present with my awareness in this transformation, feeling into that, tuning into that, I see new suitable valuable options, that are taking all my experiences and highest values up till the last stint of active play (conscious and unconscious) into account.

This alternative I see in my e-scape is usually beautiful and worth exploring in the next stint of ‘play’. Inspiration.
Often with a drive to be shared.

Different styles of ‘alternatives’

In looking around me, I find that resourceful, creative people see and actively explore alternatives more, simply because they allow themselves to be the ‘alternative’. They enjoy the transformations that take effortlessly place in their (inner) world, showing them alternatives and..... they take those alternatives actively into the outer world and shape( style) the world from that.

Although the terminology of  ‘ being alterative’ is also commonly used for a life styling strategy some people chose,  by cultivating ‘ being different from others’ ( either for its own sake, or for its outward appearance of looking interesting).

That life style is not the one I am referring to here as a catalyst for sustainable change from within in a natural way.

The people whose alternatives stem from frequently alternating  between play and rest with reality, with the flow of what is really there (and therefore with others too, taking their realities into account too), have a different source of motivation..... it is inside.
Or could that just as easily and accurately be spelled as insight.......

Insight that alternatives, in harmony with all there is, is all about creating beauty in an inspiring and empowering way, based on what IS in plain sight.
Outside follows  (flows from ) what is already seen as being present inside.