Clicking and Skipping Through Life

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 12:16pm by David Askaripour in Philosophy

Click! Snap! Click! Snap! I’m clicking the lego pieces together and building something — connecting the pieces one by one. The lego pieces stick together like glue, immovable and solid. Fixed and inanimate.

You see, for many of us playing The Game of Legos was one of our first games that we learned in pre-school. And we still play it today. But I would like to propose, through an analogy of “Playing the Game of Legos” that we are still snap/clicking the pieces together. But we have become the pieces to the game and the world has become our playground where the lego pieces take shape.

Let us first consider the implications of the “groups” that our teachers broke us into starting from youngsters in school. We are broken up into groups of five or so and told to go off into a corner to play with those certain kids over there. Of course we don’t question our teachers and we merrily go off and play.

Now, this is the first time that we are exposed to “groups,” or what we’ll now call “clicks.” Why, because we “clicked” into them. Now that the group mentality has be imbued into our psyches, we learn and accept that clicking into groups is natural and okay. So it begins — the group mentality. Also known as the herd mentality.

The Game of Legos

Now in high school the Game of Legos continues on as we click into one of the following: jocks, nerds, drama-freaks, chess club kids, popular kids, etc… And you better click in or you’ll be left out! If you’re lucky you may be able to click into the popular herd! Hurry up! Try your hardest! You can do it!

So you spend your high school years desperately clicked into your selected group and you remain a loyal member to the herd of your choice.

Then in college, oh man, the pressure to click in is even greater. Especially those crucial first few weeks of freshman year. Hurry up…!! Click into a fraternity. Click into a sorority. Click into the Spanish Club. Click into the Asian Club. Click into the Stoners Club. Click in before you get clicked out!

Now you’ve graduated and it’s time to start clicking again. Geezz… aren’t you getting tired of this game already? No, I guess not. Okay, so it’s time to click into that “Dream Job.” You know, the job that’s going to pay you the 100K+ a year. Forget about if it’s something that you really love doing or not, right? Who cares if the job sucks, it’s a dream job! Click away baby! Keep playing that game. Whooo… Hoo..!! And you better keep on clicking up that latter. Kiss ass. Cheat. Lie. Who cares, do whatever you have to do to keep on playing The Game of Legos.

The Game of Skipping

Now let me propose something else. What if, perhaps…. just hear me out…. What if, we skipped instead of clicked. When we click into things our whole lives — jobs, fancy titles, certain ways of living — we become as the lego pieces — fixed, locked in, and glued together. But what happens when we skip? When we skip we get to experience so much more.

When we allow ourselves to skip — to borrow a line from Big Papa Jesus — we become “as children,” and skip into all sorts of things in life. We merrily skip into ALL groups of people. We skip into ALL sorts of fun and adventurous jobs and projects. And we’re never locked down, always skipping along life’s paths and having a blast.

No titles. No pigeonholing ourselves into fixed categories. No glue. No jailing ourselves into this or that group. Just skipping and flowing — accepting the reality that everything is always moving and changing.

Now I’m not saying to give of playing The Legos Game (you can…if you choose to). Absolutely not. If that’s your game, then please play it. The game can be fun, no doubt. Just make sure that you take apart the pieces and pack them away when you’re done. Then get out there and skippedy skip skip.

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