Playing the Game
Originally Written September 13, 2010
Dear Readers,
I’ve been thinking about how I’ve changed in the past two years. Or how my attitude towards Peru and my living situation has changed within the past year. I’ve thought about how I’ve grown accustomed to this place where I’m living, and how I’ve become more comfortable with this lifestyle.
I came here out of a sense of curiosity and adventure, but then became racked with guilt when I discovered I didn’t like the program of Water and Sanitation, wasn’t adjusting well to Latin American culture, and honestly wasn’t very passionate about directing development projects on my own here. But I’ve had a change of perception. I started separating myself from the end results, and started playing this like it were a game, and I were in a role.
The game is this: Go to another part of the world and adapt to it, adapt to its culture, and try to see the world through their eyes. Likely you won’t go native, and fortunately that’s not even necessary if you don’t wish. But play the game. Take it seriously the way children take play seriously, but don’t get take it seriously in the way the word is often interpreted. This will help you see the world in a lighter fashion. You’ll still have the work and the tasks, but they’ll be part of your role-playing. If this is your thing, it’ll help your attitude, rather than make you see it as a laborious task.
I wonder if all of life is like this. I’ve wondered now at the value we place on getting results, rather than on the doing. Results are important, of course, and goals help us go in the direction we are working towards, so the end of our labors should not be discounted. But in seeing things like this, we take the work less “serious” in the dreary sense of the word. When we read a book, it’s often the story that we get caught up in; it isn’t just that we are trying to race to the end. At least I try to enjoy the story, I ought to say.
I’ve been surprised at how I’ve viewed the people around me recently. Today I saw a lady playing with her neighbor’s four-month old child. I noticed the smallness of the infants head compared to the older lady’s. The smooth skin versus the lady’s leathery brown skin. The smile on the lady’s face and her laughter, while the baby’s eyes just kind of lolled around the room. The fact that they both had about the same amount of teeth wasn’t lost on me, either. For a moment I saw how human it was, and it was clear to me on a level that I hadn’t seen before. It was always in front of me, but couldn’t see it. It’s almost like watching a movie with parts of the screen blocked off, or with the colors all off-key. Instead I’d been busy complaining and worrying and feeling bad I wasn’t doing something else, either in my job, or just somewhere else away from here.
But when I started to take things less seriously and the world didn’t burn down or wasn’t sucked into the sky or everything suddenly drop over dying and kicking feebly, I started to see things the way that’s closer to reality, rather than how I perceive it. I started to see the humanity in things, for one. I started to realize that things go at their own pace, and that we all have certain sets of skills that are used uniquely.
And from there, it’s easier to enjoy life, I think. It’s easier to work. If you let things be the way they just are, it’s easier to approach them and find solutions obstacles.
And I’ve started to get tired of looking for the answers to life. Maybe there are answers. I suspect that life is not digging in a mine looking for answers, but that it’s more like being a tree that grows and changes with the seasons. I wonder if maybe there are no answers, and God didn’t put us here to learn anything, except that only to learn that life is not school, and as soon as we stop assigning value to the end result, do we really start to live.
Till the next writing.
Tristan
Dear Readers,
I’ve been thinking about how I’ve changed in the past two years. Or how my attitude towards Peru and my living situation has changed within the past year. I’ve thought about how I’ve grown accustomed to this place where I’m living, and how I’ve become more comfortable with this lifestyle.
I came here out of a sense of curiosity and adventure, but then became racked with guilt when I discovered I didn’t like the program of Water and Sanitation, wasn’t adjusting well to Latin American culture, and honestly wasn’t very passionate about directing development projects on my own here. But I’ve had a change of perception. I started separating myself from the end results, and started playing this like it were a game, and I were in a role.
The game is this: Go to another part of the world and adapt to it, adapt to its culture, and try to see the world through their eyes. Likely you won’t go native, and fortunately that’s not even necessary if you don’t wish. But play the game. Take it seriously the way children take play seriously, but don’t get take it seriously in the way the word is often interpreted. This will help you see the world in a lighter fashion. You’ll still have the work and the tasks, but they’ll be part of your role-playing. If this is your thing, it’ll help your attitude, rather than make you see it as a laborious task.
I wonder if all of life is like this. I’ve wondered now at the value we place on getting results, rather than on the doing. Results are important, of course, and goals help us go in the direction we are working towards, so the end of our labors should not be discounted. But in seeing things like this, we take the work less “serious” in the dreary sense of the word. When we read a book, it’s often the story that we get caught up in; it isn’t just that we are trying to race to the end. At least I try to enjoy the story, I ought to say.
I’ve been surprised at how I’ve viewed the people around me recently. Today I saw a lady playing with her neighbor’s four-month old child. I noticed the smallness of the infants head compared to the older lady’s. The smooth skin versus the lady’s leathery brown skin. The smile on the lady’s face and her laughter, while the baby’s eyes just kind of lolled around the room. The fact that they both had about the same amount of teeth wasn’t lost on me, either. For a moment I saw how human it was, and it was clear to me on a level that I hadn’t seen before. It was always in front of me, but couldn’t see it. It’s almost like watching a movie with parts of the screen blocked off, or with the colors all off-key. Instead I’d been busy complaining and worrying and feeling bad I wasn’t doing something else, either in my job, or just somewhere else away from here.
But when I started to take things less seriously and the world didn’t burn down or wasn’t sucked into the sky or everything suddenly drop over dying and kicking feebly, I started to see things the way that’s closer to reality, rather than how I perceive it. I started to see the humanity in things, for one. I started to realize that things go at their own pace, and that we all have certain sets of skills that are used uniquely.
And from there, it’s easier to enjoy life, I think. It’s easier to work. If you let things be the way they just are, it’s easier to approach them and find solutions obstacles.
And I’ve started to get tired of looking for the answers to life. Maybe there are answers. I suspect that life is not digging in a mine looking for answers, but that it’s more like being a tree that grows and changes with the seasons. I wonder if maybe there are no answers, and God didn’t put us here to learn anything, except that only to learn that life is not school, and as soon as we stop assigning value to the end result, do we really start to live.
Till the next writing.
Tristan
posted by Tristan | 9:29 PM
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