On 21 Aug 1995, Doug Seeley wrote:
> Responding to Tim Dixon and Tobin Quereau in LO2386 and LO2395...
>
> Interesting stuff You are doing there, Tim... I wonder whether You find it
> important to provide your corporate participants with definitive cues when
> entering the play or dramatic modes within everyday organizational
> communication? It seems to me to be especially important to know that I
> have "permission" to enter play mode, in order to let the freedom and
> imagination really rip. It would then need a clear "closure ritual" in
> order to "come down" again, and play by the accepted rules again.
>
> I am thinking here of the definitive cues in animal behaviour when
> entering play mode as described in the Spring 1995 edition of ReVision on
> "Evolution and Play". There is an incredible description and photos of
> play between a polar bear and a huskie.
Very well said, Doug. Much of the process is facilitated by developing
such signals and transition rituals. The arena of play does need
demarcation in order to be free from misinterpretation and misuse. One
wonders what signals were sent from that polar bear to the huskie before,
during, and after their play. A marvelous moment for us to share....
[snip]
> It seems to me that play is a kind of
> rapid prototyping, and that High Play can be a supportive environment for
> rapid prototyping with little risk, which has a meta-purpose. One takes
> the prototype as a candidate for a working solution, and plays with it
> (i.e. does not make a serious commitment to using it)..... after a number
> of prototypes (all the while learning from each one), the one that fits
> the best, becomes the candidate for commitment into the design. Of
> course, the current fashion of Genetic Programming does this as well.
Again what you say makes good sense to me as I relate it to Jeanne
Houston's work and the play of children. Also the work of Csikszentmihalyi
and the concept of "the flow experience" come to mind. The key element
that I would add in this process you have described is to suggest that the
process is not "outcome" oriented until pretty far down the line. The
openness to intuition and intrinsic reward in the process allow for
options and opportunities to arise (emerge?) which are not as focused on
the supposed solution as happens when we have a "clear" idea, model, or
solution in mind. It is the "interplay" between people and with the
natural world which provides the environment in which creative
possibilities are born.
> Tobin describes the origins of his use of High Play as stemming from Jean
> Huston...
>
> >> "She seemed to
> use the term to point in the direction of play at the edges of human
> knowledge and awareness. As I understand it, it is a spiritual level of
> play, an enlightening experience of the cosmic dance. Complexity, chaos,
> paradox, wisdom, and foolishness abide there, and occasionally a few souls
> experience that realm and return to tell of it."
>
> I am reminded again of the metaphor of "Life at the Edge of Chaos"
> promoted by the Complex Adaptive Systems people at the Santa Fe
> Instititue.... Perhaps We are most alive when dancing at the edge of
> chaos, too much chaos and there is disintegration, too much stability and
> there is a kind of death.... The ReVision articles suggest that this kind
> of play is crucial for evolution, and I would generalize to "health". It
> suggests to me that the far reaches of this metaphor ought to be explored
> as an essential part of the human condition, for our everyday lives and
> for our organizations. Any ideas?
Right on! Thanks for the new and eloquent images you have contributed.
-- Tobin quereau@austin.cc.tx.us