Little Oracles

S02:E02 | The YOLO Philosophy: Play, Praxis, and Paroxysm in Creativity

• allison arth • Season 2 • Episode 2

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In the first Everyday Creative audio-essay of Season Two, we're looking at how play works within creative practice; the comic philosophy of Thomas Hobbes; and metaphorical boats. Possibly the most representational episode yet, because YOLO. :)

Thanks for being here, and, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine! 

IG: @littleoracles

[Intro music]

Hey everybody, and welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, an oracle for the everyday creative. I’m Allison Arth.

Well, hello! And thanks for joining me here at Little Oracles for some ruminations on the creative life. Here we are in the waxing crescent of Season Two, where we’re considering the theme of Play as Practice, and how exploration and discovery and just having fun [chuckles] within creative pursuits or endeavors is a form of – and yes, I’m gonna say it here – praxis [laughs]. And I know that word has gotten a bit meme-ified over the past few years, which, honestly, I adore, because I truly believe that if we can’t laugh at the world in its infinite absurdity, and ourselves in our own infinite absurdity, at least sometimes, then, you know, what are we even doing? [laughs]

And maybe you know that the word “absurd” draws its meaning from the Latin absurdus, which means “out of tune” – so, something so strange or fathomless or unrecognizable that it becomes ridiculous – quite laughable. And maybe you’ve heard the old saw that comedy equals tragedy plus time, which has been attributed in varying iterations and expressions to folks like Mark Twain, and Lenny Bruce, and Steve Allen, and Carol Burnett – all humorists, to one degree or another. But in my research into this little gnome, I found a surprising source that, in my estimation, seems a little bit ridiculous in and of itself: English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, as in the science of morality guy, the social contract theory guy, the “ultimate security in an ultimate sovereign” guy; the guy Bill Waterson’s famous imaginary tiger – Calvin’s adventure-loving accomplice – is named after. You know the one.

So in 1640, in the Elements of Law, Hobbes wrote that “laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory, arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.”

And all that is just a frilly way of saying that we often laugh at tragedy – or as he says, infirmity – that we see in others or in our past selves, but only if we’ve had enough time or distance from that tragedy to give us what he calls the “sudden conception of some eminency,” which can be interpreted as hierarchical, or, if we’re being generous, as a having learned from, or pushed through, or grown past some mistake or bad situation or tragic experience.

And, you know, you might be wondering: why are we analyzing Thomas Hobbes’ position on social eminency as it relates to comic paroxysm on this creativity podcast. And guess what? So am I. [laughs]

I mean, not exactly; I’m not completely adrift here and, you know, battening hatches against the storm or whatever, but I’m certainly not on a set course. What I am doing is paddling – and, you know, let’s just fill this metaphor out to its most brimming meniscus – I’m paddling with oars, and with hands; and I’m alternating, and I’m finding rhythms; and I’m scooping and sawing, and catching and driving, and stopping my ears up with wax so I don’t hear the Sirens, and asking my crew to lash me to the mast so I can, in fact, hear their call because whether through Hobbes’ “sudden glory” of laughter at the tragic or the absurd, or through this very verbal experiment using water words and allusions to log a creative thought process, I am, effectively, at play.

Now, stay with me, here [chuckles]; so, as one definition of play has it, I’m “amusing [myself] by engaging in imaginative pretense” – which is a definition that achieves its own level of absurdity, I think [chuckles], but nevertheless strikes a chord with me because, for me, creative practice is contingent on play. It’s contingent on this coalescence of imagination and amusement, such that, you know, if I’m not finding joy in or having fun with some creative pursuit – then my exploratory self, and my curious and inventive self, kinda stops down; and if my exploratory self stops down, then I’m not having much fun.

And I think it's particularly worth noting here, that, I’m using this multifaceted word – “contingent” – to describe this, because it really covers what this chicken-and-egg experience of play and creativity is for me, because it implies dependency or conditionality – you know, that state of “X precludes Y” – and, at the same time, it implies chance or possibility or accident, like in the Bob Ross sense, you know what I mean? He always says of the painting process, “There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.” And I think that’s really the heart of it: this holistic contingency of joy and curiosity on creative expression. Play fuels practice, and practice fuels play.

And I do want to recognize, here, that feeling safe to play, and safe to experiment and miss or whiff or make a mess of things – you know, those projects or ideas that don’t form up all the way, or don’t fit a bill or a brief, or just don’t feel right in that moment; feeling comfortable to play around and to make mistakes takes practice; it takes support; and it takes confidence – it takes self-assurance to keep on truckin’ after you make something that isn’t what you imagined it would be, or that maybe somebody else tears down, or that’s some cursed, Uncanny Valley scenario that you know will haunt you for the rest of your life. [laughs] I– I honestly can’t enumerate to you the number of creative outputs that I’ve wanted to trash in my life, either right away or in hindsight – uh, for example, the first sweater I ever knitted, which was an absolute cataclysm [laughs], and one arm was literally twice as long as the other, and there was a stitch marker kind of bound into the middle of back like Frodo Baggins in Shelob’s lair, and the neckhole was cast off so tightly that it probably wouldn’t even fit over the head of, like, a human toddler. [laughs] It was just a mess; it was so bad. [laughs]

But, the point is, you’re gonna make some stinkers, and you’re gonna have some false starts, and you’re gonna get some nasty comments because some people are asshats. [laughs] And all that is gonna bum you out. But guess what: every time you make a stinker, and every time you recognize you made a stinker, you’re gonna get better. And every time you play and you stink it up like the little skunky boi that you are, you’re gonna find something out; you’re gonna discover something; you’re gonna unearth an itty-bitty stinky treasure, and you’re gonna put that smelly little guy in your treasure box, and you’re gonna make something else – maybe something a little less odoriferous – next time around. And maybe, like me, you’ll experience that Hobbesian moment of eminency over your former self. [laughs] Comedy equals tragedy plus time.

So, back to play. For me, play takes so many forms, some of which I’m exhibiting for you here: it can be, you know, learning something new – like the origins of that axiom about comedy and tragedy – and applying that to something I’m writing or making. It can be a word-based experiment, just some stream of consciousness, guided-metaphor extrapolation based on something I’ve read, or something I’ve seen in a photograph on Instagram, maybe, or in a TV show: basically, just taking a word or a concept or an image, and creating this tiny lexical universe around it. [laughs]

I also find a lot of room to play and invent and try things out in other ways that aren’t directly tied to my writing work, but that can definitely inform it. I’m thinking of things like cooking an unfamiliar dish (or altering a familiar one) and finding a new favorite flavor combination or preparation; or, you know, walking a new route to the grocery store or the library or whatever, and seeing some new architecture or a tree in bloom; or engaging in what we in our house call “Record Roulette,” wherein the “rouletter” selects a record at random and we listen – it’s kind of like a physical playlist shuffle, and something that generates some really fascinating juxtapositions or exposes synergies between artists that we might never have found.

So, basically, I rely on play to reveal things, and to shake up monotony, and to help me draw connections. And I think that’s one of the best ways to use play in a creative practice. Honestly, this entire episode is play manifest; it’s play in practice, and that intersection of imagination and amusement; it’s a sudden glory; it’s a vessel that I carry, and that, in a way, carries me on the seas of creativity. [laughs]

But let’s get back to reality, ‘ope there goes gravity, nope; I won’t quote this dope rhyme any more but I hope you can scope: you can feel for the rope that I’m throwing across to your boat for the tow so you float, so you don’t undercoat the way that a moment of play can break up the rote and result in a whole different show, and connote a new set of the mind or provoke a reset of the yoke that’s been holding your stroke, that’s been stemming your stoke, ‘cause you know that old joke; it’s right, and it’s broke; I can’t help but invoke that old trope; it’s the GOAT: it’s just YOLO. [laughs]

You only live once. [cat meows; laughs] Thanks, Domino! [laughs] Explore and experiment, laugh at yourself, stink it up, perform spoken word in your creativity podcast. [laughs] Imagine, and be curious, and amuse yourself, honestly. Follow the fun stuff, uncover ties and threads and connections. Just play.

And that’s it for this episode; thanks for jumping into this widening gyre of play and praxis and creative boats and Eminem offshoots. And, you know, I’m so glad that you’re here as we open Season Two of the Little Oracles podcast. Don’t forget to check out the blog at little oracles dot com, and follow (at) little oracles on Instagram for more big book energy and creativity content, including our ABC picks for June: our book club reading theme is Fallout: Transgression, Defiance, and the Social Abbatoir – so, you know, very, very playful as you can see [laughs] – but, you know, honestly, there’s something to be said about the mortise and tenon relationship of horror and laughter, but I think that’s another episode! [laughs] Anyhow, thank you so much for being here, I’m so looking forward to sharing this season with all of you; if you like what we’re doing here on the pod, share this episode or another episode with someone, rate us whenever you listen or leave a review to help the podcast grow, and to put a smile on this little podcaster’s face, and, as always, take care, keep creating, and stay divine.

[Music outro]