Your creation meter: The kid rule
Everything we do is an act of creation. It’s my choice to make it a high or low level creation, by how I engage.
How can I tell at what level I’m creating?
By following the kid rule.
I follow the lead of our nine-year old. Whether it’s math or building a fort, you can accurately gauge his level of participation by his playfulness.
You might call it zest or a higher vibration or passion or enthusiasm . . . playfulness lies at the heart of it.
Here’s a recent example about gauging my level of creation in my personal life.
Someone I know from a polite distance mass forwards inflammatory political emails, without fact checking for truthfulness. Because of other close relationships, this person is inextricable from my life.
It would be easy to take either of these two options:
- Ignore the emails
( . . . yet then I would feel as if I’m a silent participant. Imagine if no one had stood up while other inflammatory falsehoods were being passed around in the past. You know . . . blacks are inferior . . . women do not deserve the right to vote, their husbands know best . . . Jews do not deserve to live . . . there are numerous instances where the silent and well-meaning let the extremists get away with their blather.)
- Respond vehemently (and bitingly as can be my habit)
( . . . that gets us nowhere but where we’re at. There are popular TV channels devoted to that option.)
The most difficult option ultimately turned out to be the most rewarding. First I let the email blast slide for a couple of days to tune into my better angels — always a good idea.
Then I googled fact-checking sites that addressed that particular issue. Since the claims were so far off the truth I quickly found several neutral fact-checking sources decrying the falsehoods (or if my lower angels were speaking . . . they called bullsh!t on those damned lies!).
(See what I mean, Evan Two would leap there right away. Time and playing with agape love allowed Evan One to surface.)
So I crafted a calm response, yes, with a touch of playfulness. You know you’re getting to playful when you use terms like easy peasy.
It took a fair amount of editing Evan Two to let Evan One shine through. As the snarling thoughts receded and lighter ones came into view I could tell the creation index was moving upward.
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