Whimsy

I taught a wire wrapping class tonight at work today. Wire wrapping is when you take crafting wire and manipulate it into a shape to make jewelry and decorations and other kinds of art. You often see it with stones. It's a beautiful craft and I had fun learning about it and sharing it with other people. In my class we formed wire into words, using other wire and beads to create small pieces of art. I design my classes to be fairly open in terms of design options. I want to see where people take the various crafts I give them instead of everyone making the same thing. The notable thing with this class is it was mostly adults.

I think a lot of people see classes, especially crafting types of art, for kids. Or at least the crafts I tend to pick. I never put an upper age limit to my classes, and only lower limits due to the skills required. Since I do a lot of craft type classes I get a lot of kids. Now don't get me wrong, kids are great, especially ones I don't have to babysit, but I have often felt that adults deserve to have fun too. In fact, that's what I tell kids who are disappointed that the Winter Reading Challenge is for adults only. Summer is for kids, winter is for adults. Adults get to have fun too.

As I have gotten older (and learned more about neurodiversity) my belief that adults should play has only gotten stronger. We live in a stressful society. Being able to diffuse some of that stress through playing is more important than ever. (As I write this, I'm eating dino tater tots with dinner) I don't mean playing games on your phone or computer - no shade to those who do, after all I'm one of them. I mean doing something simply because it's fun. Somewhere in the process of growing up we lost the habit of playing.

Now, I've always been a bit of an oddball, which is one of the reasons autism and ADHD doesn't seem far fetched, so play has always been important to me to some degree. Play doesn't have to be complicated. It could be as simple as blowing bubbles out your window while in traffic. It can also be as complicated as LARPing (live action role play, or battling with foam weapons with a bunch of other similarly minded people) or engaging in cosplay (dressing up as a character you like). It can be literally anything as long as you're having fun.

Play reduces stress. It releases endorphins and strengthens social bonds. It increases cognitive ability and helps prevent memory loss. Play is essential to a healthy life, yet so many of us are afraid of looking silly, or making a mistake, or I don't know I'm not afraid of playing. I had to make it clear to my therapist (a new endeavor for me) that stimming in public and at work isn't a problem for me. Stimming is a way of regulating your nervous system via things like fidgeting, bouncing, making sounds, etc. Nowadays I carry around with me a variety of fidget tools. I actively look for ways to increase whimsy in my life. You should too. It's fun and healthy to play at any age.