How much play do you allow in your life?

Let’s get down to work here. Stop messing around. Enough goofing off, it’s time to get serious.

Oh dearest reader, the deeper I dig into the struggles and questions and answers of life, the harder I work and more I search with furrowed brow, the more I hear the answer clearly whispered to me in a single word: play.

It is both the innocent imagination of a 3-year old and at the same time the ease of flow of an ancient master. In fact, I think it is not one or the other, but the two together.

i have a hard time teaching the concept to my kids (well, on second thought, it can be challenging to teach the ideology to adults) without them thinking that I’m talking about goofing off or slacking or wasting time and avoiding “real work.”

My explanations helps my kids little: when you experience mortality in someone close to you, it changes, no, alters, no, transforms your perception of your own reality. What was previously important might become less important–or more important. What was only a short time ago was the foundation of your existence is as light as toast.

I openly admit to being a card-carrying Carl Spackler fan and unabashedly quote from Caddyshack as if were the Old Testament. But his belief in “what he’s got going for him” is so genuine that it fuels his passion and quells any fears. He feels as if he has been given something special, now has something special, as if he is someone special and the fact is, that’s all he needs.

Does everyone have this? Now I never caddied for the Dalai Lama, but somewhere along the line, someone gave me a gift like Carl received and I have it. It’s lightness, it’s a knowing that all is going to be OK and to stop the struggle and let something larger lead the way.

It’s not necessarily comedy. It doesn’t have to be funny or laughing. It’s not too serious, but it’s of utmost importance. At the end of the day, I feel I sometimes need a bit of replenishment, but in the morning, I’m charged up with it to the brim.

I don’t have another word for it, but this one seems just fine. It’s a sly, knowing smile. It’s simple. It’s uncomplicated. It’s as powerful as a rocket and can be as quiet as an owl. It’s just this one thing: Play.

So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking.

So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one – big hitter, the Lama – long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-galunga.

So we finish eighteen and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.”

So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice. — Carl Spackler