Playtime Sometime after already knowing I was sharply aware, skilled at processing and highly empathetic, is when I learned the power of playing. After all, I had the time and it was exploration. I didn't really know that I was on any soul path, but I was on the brink of discovering it. You may think many things of what I am about to tell but you'd likely be wrong, unless you take what I say at face value. Please leave your pre-conceived notions and media-induced bias at the door. Online communities are not peopled by raving ax-murders, rapists, and child molesters. I imagine that the percentage of these persons online is about the same as in the offline population. Also, roleplay does not result in going to live in the sewers to play Mazes & Monsters. Roleplay is a creative, recreational activity and no more harmful than watching TV, going to the movies, or reading books except that your brain is more fully engaged since it's interactive. Okay, now... I accidently discovered online roleplay. I had played at tabletop games only a couple of times and I really liked a few computer roleplaying games but what I found online was so much more. In the play channel I found, the genre was set but there were very few other rules. It was free form roleplay and subject only to the whims of the folks playing. This was not idle messages in a chatroom. This was a call to create a character that fit the genre and jump in with both feet (or hands), reacting and interacting with everyone else in there who was doing the same. The group I came to play with were actually very creative writers. They had fantastically vivid imaginations. Through this play, I found a way to stretch my own creativity and hone my writing skills. What we were doing was akin to writing an adventure novel live. It required quick thinking and a growing knowledge of the characters we had invented as well as a good grasp of the virtual environment we were sharing and building together. It's terrific for brain exercise alone and certainly beats the numbness of soaking in television. I now believe that it was no accident for me to find this outlet. While we were playing, each in the roles of characters that we ourselves created, I found my own imagination expanding to new possibilities, even just in fiction. I was also exercising my skills of awareness and interaction. It was all play, but excellent mind practice as well. A fringe benefit was being allowed to express emotions through my characters and explore facets of my own personality that would not usually be active in the real world away from this play activity. To associate the value of delving into my own psyche this way, I recall how well I came to know English by studying Spanish. That would seem odd perhaps but the process of learning a new language requires that you look at its origin and components. I gained new tools while learning to build a vocabulary and understanding of Spanish. I could then turn them back on English with a fresh perspective and understand its origin and components better. The same was true for creating story characters. The best characters, the most realistic ones, will draw upon at least a part of the writer's own personality and experience. Ultimately I created many characters and they were all some mix of me, perhaps taken to extremes or mingled with elements I do not possess, but I learned of them in the process of writing. Now through these playtime associations, I came to know the real people behind the other characters being played against mine. These folks are marvelous, intelligent, witty, and soulful persons. They are my friends, some are my closest friends, even though I didn't see them in person for a couple of years after knowing them well online. This is one of the most miraculous advents in human history. We can meet people from across the planet and connect with them, where before the Internet, we would never have known they existed. In fact, I have made contact with some of my soul circle through this medium. I don't know how we would have connected before this miracle of technology. So I gained new close friends and began to dissect my own personality with the aid of playing parts of it in various characters. I learned much. I began to see how the pieces had developed through my life, how they got mixed in together and how I had stifled some in the course of living. I learned which parts of me I was nurturing and what I had neglected. I began to feel the soul urge to awaken and other lesser urges to clean out the closets, so to speak. It was time for spring cleaning, for dragging out all the boxes and baggage to be sorted, kept, tossed, modified then reintegrated into what I want me to be, rather than how I just happened to turn out. Another non-coincidence is that this occurred as I realized I was entering the midlife crisis phase of this life. Which came first? Did the play spur the re-evaluation or was it a product of the urges that would have been there anyway? I think it's likely a combination and as usual in my life, the timing was just right. The play allowed me the freedom to muck about in the lives of characters until I finally realized that I could formulate my real self in the very same way. I give thanks for this revelation as it makes much easier work of the usually soul-rending midlife transformation. This is not to say that it's easy. I have decades of old habits to unlearn, but now I have given myself permission to do that and to build back up again to being Me. With the mind-expansion of roleplaying, I also gained much skill in visualization which is important for spirit activities like grounding and centering, astral projection, event recognition, sign interpretation and so forth. This kind of playing yields quite a valuable benefit. I also think that this sort of roleplay is not the only way to learn these skills. In a sense, television and other mediums of fantasy have helped us learn to project outside ourselves by exercising our imagination. Video games, whether played on individual machines or across the internet with others, have also taught us how to envision, to contemplate, to design and to take action beyond our mundane physical selves. Of course, anytime we can play, at whatever it is, we should find that it sets our souls free in one way or another. This could never be a bad thing, just be wary to consider moderation and to keep tabs on your connections to others and yourself. Escapism is not the same thing as playtime. If you're running from something, it would be best to turn around and see what it is. However, while playing, if you find characteristics you like, but don't exercise them except in play, consider nourishing those parts of you. They're in there somewhere or it would never have occurred to you to play those traits. Keep what gives you joy and clean out the anger, pain and fear. Who needs it? Play. (Playtime)

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