Go Out and Play!

re: Go Out and Play!

bvg1105 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:56:39 GMT

You are never to old to enjoy life. Don't let anyone tell you different!!!!!

re: Go Out and Play!

JuneTaylor — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:34:27 GMT

After I retired, we were told at the Retirement dinner to join many activities. So I learned the Mountain Dulcimer and now teach it and lead a Dulcimer Club. Also took line dancing twice weekly and learned MahJongg and also teach that difficult but compelling and addictive game. We began Pickleball weekly and enjoy all the action it takes to hit that whiffle ball back over the net. Finally, I joined clogging that Appalachian tap dancing with double-taps on the shoes. Everything is healthy fun, invigorating for the body and also the brain. Retirement is GOOD!

re: Go Out and Play!

azulagua — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:10:23 GMT

This has been an uplifting read. Thanks to all contributors. I personally laugh out loudly whenever I can find an excuse to do so...but sadly FUN is greatly lacking in my life. I watch the kids, esp. the grandkid and am amazed at the lack of FUN I see happening there. It is scary. So much time excercising a couple of his fingers and the left side of his brain. So much time spent in the house. He appreciates nature once we can get him outside but it takes effort to do. I will seek remedy to this ASAP. Very crucial to life on earth. A few years back I was chronically ill and feeling VERY depressed when it occured to me that what I need is some good old FUN. I said it out loud. "I need to do something FUN...but what is fun?" The then 2 year old grandson told me quite clear and very simply "FUN is doing things together!" Thank you small child for your words of wisdom...now lets go do something fun! I have been getting well ever since. I have found that fun means being "out of your mind and into your heart."

re: Go Out and Play!

Heather Marsh — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:44:21 GMT

Many years ago I met an ex-boyfriend who had married a few months earlier.

He moaned about boring married life was - and I let rip! He should have still been in the honeymoon phase :(

Firstly - if he was bored - he was probably boring. He was aghast. I asked him when he last played. "At what?" he asked.

I told him - very seriously - that the child he was is eternal, just hidden.

That sometimes you need to be playful/frivolous. To something for the joy of it.

When you forget how to play, you lose your sense of wonder and become too bogged in the minutae of life to live.

Being adult is not surrendering the child within - it is knowing when to set that child free to play.

Middle age crisis might only be a last desperate instinct to do just that

re: Go Out and Play!

soleprobe — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:38:15 GMT

I may sound like a nut but they have been doing a lot of aerial spraying in my area and I don’t think it’s safe to go out and play anymore. They have turned the once beautiful deep blue summer sky into a light blue haze. Of course people running around like rats with their bellies to the ground hardly take the time to look up and notice the unmarked military jets crisscrossing the sky leaving white plumes that last for hours and spread out into a haze that filters the sun. That’s right, filters the UVB light (vitamin D generator) but not the UVA light (melanoma aggravator). Maybe these characters really do know what they’re doing.

And when I do a little research and find that the plumes contains barium and aluminum oxide, well there goes my daily outdoor jog in the park.

I think the Doctor might want to look into this. After all, you can eat and drink all the pure stuff that you want, but if the air has been contaminated (I think deliberately) then an additional set of new precautions must be considered otherwise all this healthy eating and drinking will be for not.

re: Go Out and Play!

hoolagirl — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:29:49 GMT

"Unknown" , that is, what a weird word, doesn't even look right when spelled correctly!

re: Go Out and Play!

hoolagirl — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:28:24 GMT

"We don't stop playing when we grow old, we grow old when we stop playing." - Unkown

re: Go Out and Play!

curious7 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:16:28 GMT

I had a very wise man tell me before I got married that one should marry one's self. I have to tell you I had a hard time with that concept, at first. One has to have as many things in common with a perspective mate as possible. This is where play comes in. If the two of you have this concept of play in common, you will never be at odds as to what is fun. Get in touch with your inner child.

re: Go Out and Play!

david — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:04:55 GMT

DAVE-O....

Read 'The Element', by Ken Robinson.

It is much more realistic and logical than the esoteric BS of 'The Secret'....and it is where we should all be encouraged to be, but as you so rightly say, school is not teaching kids to live life, in and to, our fullest sense.

You can choose to live within the confines of indoctrinated loonacy....or escape to the real world !! :-)

Have fun!

re: Go Out and Play!

richmorr — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:56:53 GMT

I agree enthusiastically!. At age 65, obviously senile, and pretty helpless, I started to play tennis. The senility is gone now, and my tennis really helped me understand where the problems were. Just try following a fast-moving tennis ball! After about 10 minutes of playing, my brain - the part that deals with processing information coming from the eyes - was complaining of being tired. Did anyone say Alzheimer's was due to insulin resistance? Over and over again, this sport has given me the information I needed to save my own life. I have met others who - privately - will confirm that the sport saved their lives. I am now 68. People on my team are getting a little afraid of my game. They think I am in my 50's. I am happily moving on. When I complain to my students about Alzheimer's, they laugh at me.

YAYY FOR PLAY IN THE SUN!

re: Go Out and Play!

David_Winston — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:00:49 GMT

At 65, I've just begun getting out on a regular basis to play and

am loving it. I'm learning a new game, Pickleball, which is a cross

between ping pong and tennis. It is great exercise, good exposure

to the sun and gets me out of my whirlwind/worrier mind. It can be

played both outdoors and indoors, and this time of year, outdoors

is the place. http://www.pickleball.com/

re: Go Out and Play!

redbird_3 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:52:46 GMT

I have noticed that for years kids do not play outside anymore - not like we did. We were never in the house. I don't know how many kids we have in our neighborhood until Halloween. In September the hurricane that hit Texas came up through through KY and OH and caused much damage, including power outage for days. Kids were OUTSIDE playing because they didn't have computers, TV etc. It was great seeing them outside. Kids need to be outside running, playing, getting sunshine, fresh air and dirt! Adults need it too!!

re: Go Out and Play!

Doctor_Regal — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:45:04 GMT

Life is play, an act to be lived out and enjoyed to the best of ones abilities.

re: Go Out and Play!

ddonoghue — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:41:20 GMT

What Thai Island have you spent your winters on?

re: Go Out and Play!

david — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:17:12 GMT

"Are you going through your second childhood?"....No, I've never left my first!

I have spent the last two winters on a small Thai Island where the locals have never lost their sense of play and most healthy, simple communities enjoy playing together throughout life.In our insane, modern western societies, we have lost the basic arts and simple pleasures in so many ways and invariably, to our detriment.