Did you know play is ESSENTIAL for your mental health? There are two types of play, competitive (hunting, sports, competition in general) and participatory play(singing, dancing, theater, and other games for the sake of being together) Something I’ve noticed again and again in our culture of the west is that we over emphasize winning, winning, winning, and we spend no time just enjoying time together. Now this is not suggesting participation trophies for little league sports. It’s a sport for crying out loud and learning to be a good winner and a good loser is very important. However, I would argue we have lost something crucial, a social glue of sorts from our communities. 150 years ago it was very common to have seasonal dances, balls, plays and events outside of the corporate endorsed holidays. Harvest moon dances, May Day festivals, midsummer dances. All this to ask, what do you do for participatory play in your lives? I find myself struggling with it and feeling the need to bring that culture back

Had a thought as I was reading Cody's Stoic wisdom piece. I consider myself a follow of Jesus but not a Christian. I grew up Mormon but eventually left the faith. The reason I bring this up is because I have been reading the New Testament again in the original Greek and trying to understand what those words would have meant in that context and outside of what we as modern Christians project what we think he meant onto it. I'll give you an example of what I mean using only one verse. Matt 5:9 ESV "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Reading this you're like cool, if you're a peacemaker you'll be blessed and God will be happy. Whoopy. But if you dive into the context it actually means something very different. In the original Greek context and meaning its more akin to "Deeply aligned with God’s favor are those who actively make peace with others, because they prove by their actions that they reflect God’s character." So its not, you'll receive blessings for taking a beating and being submissive as our modern English reading would have understood it. It would be more akin to you should be an active participant for making peace and bringing gods kingdom to the world. Jesus was not a submissive man, and I would strongly argue he was much more dangerous to the empire of his day than any military rebellion could ever have been. He showed people how to truly build their community, that they didnt need to be rich and powerful to be influential and how to start breaking the Empire apart from the inside using love, trust and the ideals that the world should be based on. Not the superiority of the one to subject everyone else, but the service of the one to the many.

My good buddy TJ texted me this today. I feel like I have so much to learn about myself still now that I’m a dad. Becoming a parent changes your desire for introspection IME. I want to go deep inside myself to make sure I don’t project too much onto my babies.