Play Is Your Most Natural Form Of Expression

Patrick van Raalten
2 min readFeb 24, 2022

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Photo: author doing some weird stuff dressed in a bee onesie

When we are young, we learn by playing. Playing is the essential way of interacting with the world, of making mistakes and learning for a child.

It is beautiful to see when children play. Completely in the moment and not hindered in any way by what others think or perceive.

I love the purity of that. I am sure that you can recall a moment or photo of yourself where you were just playing uninhibited.

That is something that touches my soul. When I look at my photo I instantly feel myself transported back to that exact moment. The way I felt, the world of no time and carefree playing forever.

And then, we grow up and somehow lose touch with this child. We have to become responsible adults in a serious world.

But this child never went away. I know for a fact that it is still there. Always watching me doing adult stuff, never quit getting what all the seriousness is all about.

And many times a day it just takes over. Some spontaneous dancing or just weird moves for the fun of it and sometimes just being overwhelmed and amazed about this grown up world.

For a long period I worked as a self employed interim consultant. A lot of the time I was hired to solve difficult situations in teams. One of the biggest qualities I brought to these situations was my playfulness.

I brought some relief in these situations because I put things in perspective. A lot of times I told professionals to approach their work more as a game they play. A lot of times people would get caught up in too much seriousness and pressure because they didn’t play anymore.

So what about some playing around? Just playing in this moment as if there was no tomorrow? (there really isn’t, it is always now)

And what about if we allowed ourselves more playing while writing?

Wouldn’t that be fun?

Thank you for reading! I hope you found some nuggets in this short piece about playing or feel inspired in some way. I am curious what that is. Let me know in a comment.

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Patrick van Raalten

Multidisciplinary Artist. Painter, Musician, Photographer and Writer. Free as a bird. Let go, let go and let go. Instagram: instagram.com/patrickvanraalten