Let's play our trouble away

Tongki Ari Wibowo | Thu, 11/05/2009 5:11 PM

The world circles around the sun and all the people in it struggle against time and each other to satisfy their needs. Those who make it to the top of the food chain take it all, while those who don’t depart with nothing but trouble.

When I found myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

The Beatles’ Let It Be rings so true when it comes to facing the music. We can let it pass us by. Maybe it seems like a silly thing to do, but – like it or not – trouble always come our way and life goes on.

I see problem solving as a Rubik’s Cube, the three-dimensional puzzle with shifting colors and shapes. You can make many moves to solve it. More than a thousand unique combinations will put all the cubes of the same color on a single face of the cube. This puzzle comes in many shapes, including balls and pyramids. Each type is difficult in its own way, all requre patience and discipline.

In real life problems emerge anytime, slapping you in the face with trouble. Just like a Rubik’s Cube, the more complicated the problem the more ways you have to solve them. If you try to figure it out too fast, you may not see how to solve it. Your creativity and ability to see where you stand can transform your problem into something fascinating. Solving problems is an art: We call it play.

All too often we see life too seriously, which adds complexity and cynicism to the basic issue. When we get tangled up in our problems, we need a shortcut, a way out.  Play can bring us back to an energetic and fruitful state.

So let’s play. We need to lay back and relax once in a while every day. We can play with a situation, play hide and seek with time, play tag – You’re it! – with opportunities. Or we can take light steps from one place to another to clear our minds and let go of all the extra baggage, even if just for few hours.

We can play with our minds, too, picking up ideas while observing our surroundings or pampering our senses with imagination, playing with colors and adopting imaginary roles we do not have in the real world.

All humans need to play, actually.  It’s a daily requirement, like vitamins, though sometimes we don’t realize it as we mistake it for clamor or routine activities. We can’t avoid it, in whatever we do, whichever time or whomever to play with. With that in mind, are you ready to come out and play?

Tongki is a self-proclaimed freelance student at state high school SMA 47 in Jakarta. He loves to play with words and writes his dream and reflection at www.kertasburam.dagdigdug.com. His blog recently won the Internet Sehat Blog Award (ISBA) in the student blog category.

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