Play With It

This post is brought to you by the power of play.

Sometimes the best results come when we’re not focused on getting any results at all, when we’re just playing around. This just happened for me when I was playing with my dog, Bodhi, and my iPhone. Here’s what happened:

This shot hasn’t been Photoshopped or manipulated in any way. It’s a result of the scan-rate of the iPhone’s camera combined with Bodhi’s perfectly-timed movement, which created this wormhole effect.

Play keeps us fresh and opens up a universe of unexpected surprises (some of which might just take your breath away).

We all knew this as kids. Some of us never stopped playing. And I’m writing to encourage everyone to keep up the good work… I mean the good play.

Our job as artists is to explore the unknown, to get out of the predictable comfort zone of what we know we can do, to get intimate with the mystery, to relate personally with it in somehow, and to find ways to share what we’ve discovered. So let’s all get loose and playful and forget about making mistakes or messing things up. There are countless reasons to be tight and afraid and stressed-out and excessively perfectionistic, but the net result of all of them is the constriction of our elemental creativity. So here’s a reminder (to myself, as well as to you) to loosen up, to get into the groove of things done for the love of it, and to just play with your creative tools, whatever they might be.

Go ahead. Play with it. Make fun of it. Get out of the zone of the known. Get funky with the unknown. And when you feel ready, share the love with people who support your creative spirit.