Enter the playpen, for insights and ideas on the theme of play. Let’s build a kindergarten for adults - to invoke and foster the spirit of play like a child while shouldering responsibilities like an adult.
Hello everyone, I’ve been missing in action for a while, but I’m not going to dive into that today. I’m here to talk about my friends.
Everyone I know is starting an online course. Sir Steven Wilkinson for one, is teaching people to further their expertise in finance, capital allocation, leadership, culture and strategy, as well as individual leadership coaching and mentoring through his knowledge platform called Good & Prosper. Here’s a quote I stole from him.
You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand - E. O. WILSON
That is what I like about this new breed of online courses - the involvement. Not only is there an interaction between instructor and student, but also between other members of the cohort. If money is something you’re confused about, head on over to the link above.
But today’s letter is about what you do when you complete a course. Why celebrate of course! This is a matter of great joy & much celebration. But while education has moved online effortlessly, we've yet to nail down on the post-completion celebratory experience online.
🎉 Can we Celebrate Online?
Majority of celebratory rituals require people and copious amounts of substances to ensure we get along with those people. And movement. We dance not to impress but to express. To feel the abandon of mouthy our bodies outside of the constraint of routine social decorum.
Post-pandemic interactions have minimised or nullified this completely. How can we celebrate through the online digital medium? Whenever I'm presented with how as a question, I look at the why. Why do we celebrate?
Every moment of life is a celebration. what reason is there to not celebrate? Regardless of what we're celebrating, the emotion beneath is always gratitude.
Today through this pandemic we're all enduring, that is certain and common to us all. We are all grateful to be alone. That alone is reason enough to dance, share laughs and rejoice rambunctiously. But to dive deeper here's
🗒 My List of Things to Celebrate
1. Movement:
If anything the lockdown has raised an appreciation for.tt's movement Harty barely recovered from a knee injury, the ability to move & locomote independently of support is nothing short of miraculous. It’s ironic that we are all lamenting being locked in but even when free, we rarely if ever use our bodies through the complete range of motion. If you are locked in and aren’t moving at home, do yourself a favour and read this article.
2. Friends:
First I will pay tribute to my feline companions. Definitely no substitute for female companionship, but my cats have been a constant through these months. Watching some die and some born has driven deeper the reality of the cycle of destruction & creation. Next up my friends. In a world of acquaintances, colleagues, prospects and the like, friends are few and hard to come by. Even harder to have them stay in your life. A simple way to define friends in the old adage: a friend In need is a friend indeed. My friends have all passed this test in these trying times.
3. Madness:
I hate labels so neither do I self-diagnose no do I accept that of others. But I'll still use the term to outline my deviation from the norm. I've always enjoyed my madness even when it led me to bitter ends. In this crisis, I not only endured but liberated myself to levels of freedom I've not experienced even on my wildest psychedelic adventures.
So there you have it. That’s some of the things I'm grateful for and what I'm celebrating. In fact, I would celebrate the COVID-19 virus as well because it was this precipitating factor that triggered all that has transpired over the last year.
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. - Marcel Proust
“All this is fine, but where’s the celebration?” Yes, I hear you. The question you're all here for: how do we celebrate online?
🎉 Gratitude Attack!
A gratitude attack! That’s what Cam Houser calls a celebration of gratitude on a zoom call with hundreds of people. Until technology can help us share sensations like table, touch & smell, we make do with sound & sight. I've yet to come across a simpler, more social way to celebrate alone.
If you want to learn more of his tricks, I suggest you sign up for his course - Minimum Viable Video. But if you want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, here are his conversations with Ali Abdaal and Julia Saxena.
On that note, I'll end this celebration of my ability to communicate and share my thoughts with you all. I thank you for reading & enduring my inconsistent publishing. You're all part of history in the making. A history we're writing together. The world is ours to enjoy and celebrate! ❤️
Stay subscribed. Check out more articles on my website or DM on Twitter 🕹 to chat more on how we can play!
Aaha! Wonderful edition. Went absolutely well with my morning coffee. Loved the quotes. Loved the writing, especially about gratitude. Stealing the quotes for High Five.