carbonated joy

I love this picture of my daughter!
She looks a little crazy, I like that!
I’m a fan of crazy, it makes people interesting.
There is wild abandon in her eyes, she is clearly consumed by the spirit of “I MUST PLAY!!!!”
She is obviously on a great adventure. She is exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where no man has gone before. All it required was a wild imagination and a couple of boxes! I like how she clearly ignored the store bought, pricey plastic toy boat in the background. She had found some old cardboard and shiny tape and she built a spaceship. (She MIGHT have had a little help). (NOTE: There is Peanut butter toast and an apple on the trusty Pocahontas plate in front of her. These are healthy spaceship rations that honestly, were probably ignored.)
Did you ever notice the magical things that kids can do with things that grown ups throw away?
That’s because they are masters at recycling and imagination. They see things that old eyes can’t, they can turn a cardboard box into a super cool spaceship that takes them places! Recycling and imagineering are valuable life skills. We are all born with them. Imagination is inbred. Kids don’t have to be taught to play with whatever they can find. It’s a default setting. Imagination is a wild, untamed thing. imagination is all about wonder and wander. Wonder says life is mysterious and wonderful. Wander says let’s go in search of adventure. Imagination was designed to stay wild. But, we tend to domesticate it, it’s much more socially acceptable to have a tamed imagination. We unlearn the life skills and we learn to conform and keep our feet firmly planted on planet earth.
The recycling and imagineering skills are slowly squeezed out of us.
We forget how to build spaceships
In the endless quest to act our age we lose our orbit.
We start looking at cardboard and just seeing cardboard.
We quit looking up because we have our nose to the grindstone.
The gravity of life keeps us from getting off the ground.
We stop stargazing.

I think it’s time to build a better spaceship.

We need to become recyclers and imagineers again. It’s gonna require a little wildness and weirdness. We gotta get a little crazy. We’ve got to live with wild abandon and be consumed by a spirit of play. We need to live with wonder and wander. It takes losing control. I’m finding that it’s better to live with abandon than control, it’s also a lot more fun. But, you have to get your hands off the controls and trust mission control. That’s not easy, but it’s the only way to find your orbit.
Maybe we need to recycle some old dreams, take them out and dust them off.
You have to see what others have lost sight of.
We need to learn to to play again.
We need to defy gravity, don’t be held down by anything! Cut the ropes on bad choices, unforgiveness, toxic relationships or selfishness.
Imagine hard!
If we learned anything from Peter Pan about flight, it’s that you have to think happy thoughts. If you plan on ever reaching The “Second star to the right and straight on till morning” you got to get happy. Cynics never get to fly.
We need to help others build their spaceship. Rocket builders are meant to also become rocket launchers. Help the people around you find their orbit! Help your kids, friends, coworkers, and complete strangers.
So c’mon! Let’s build some super cool spaceships together and let’s go, in the words of my favorite space ranger, “To infinity and beyond!”