The latest book by poet/naturalist/etc. Diane Ackerman has an inspiring message: We do some of our best work while we are actually at play.
What fun! Where do I sign up?
In my deepest self, it turns out. “Deep Play” (abridged to six hours, $24.95), read by Shauna Zurbrugg for Audio Literature, is an exploration of why and how.
She describes the phenomenon as one of being totally engaged — engrossed — with the matter at hand. And with life itself, in the best sense.
This produces the closest thing to an alternative state of consciousness in which we are at peace with ourselves, yet enlivened and receptive in all our senses and brain cells.
Risk-takers such as mountain climbers and balloonists feel it. People who seek out sacred places and other travelers can feel it. Lovers often experience it. Some people who play musical instruments — or do something simple like baking bread — can experience it. What counts is allowing the self to become absorbed, not by the task, but in it.
Ackerman is, among many other things, a poet. So a deftly turned phrase or two is to be expected.
Deep play, she writes, “is a fascinating hallmark of being human; it reveals our need to seek a special brand of transcendence, with a passion that makes thrill-seeking inevitable, creativity possible and religion inevitable.”
How to describe deep play succinctly? It is a way of abandoning oneself to the moment, without abdicating oneself. It is a way of getting outside the self, while at the same time being intensely within it.
Ackerman rambles a bit. Calling the audio disjointed would be unkind; she approaches it more with the enthusiasm of a child picking a fistful of many-colored flowers.
But all the same, I kept wanting to stop the tape to jot down a point or two I particularly liked.
Although not intended to be a self-help book, “Deep Play” turned out to be more inspiring than two other recent audios that are self-help.
“Put Your Best Foot Forward” by Jo-Ellan Dimitrius and Mark Mazzarella (three hours, $18, Simon & Schuster) was a nice idea, but it would have been better in print.
I got confused when these two consultants in jury selections started talking about four central attributes and seven points of the compass and poison or miracle something-or-others.
Maybe the abridgment left a few vital points out. Not to worry. I can distill things even more: Look your best. Act your best.
David Lieberman’s “Get Anyone to Do Anything and Never Feel Powerless Again” explains the necessary steps in a mere 1 hour ($12, Simon & Schuster).
But none of them worked when I tried to get my deskmate to fork over $10 million. Simply asking him to do it — on the theory that people like you when you ask them to do things for you — failed miserably. He laughed.
The next step, suggesting to Bill that he is somehow better than other people for giving me the $10 million, thus investing in his self-esteem in the process, didn’t work either. As for getting him to commit to a time frame, well — does “in your dreams” count?
