Increase the Nonsense

I kid with my son a lot and say, "That's all just a bunch of nonsense." He laughs and says it back. I'm not sure he even knows what the word means to be honest.

The way we talk about it in our house makes it synonymous with the word fun.

And the more I think about it, the more nonsense and fun go hand in hand.

Let me ask you this: what is fun in your life?

If you had a Saturday completely free to do anything you wanted and it had to be fun, what would you do?

Think about it for a few seconds.

Is it sports? Either watching or playing.

Or videogames or going to see a movie?

Would you go to an aquarium or the beach? Or maybe a hike or sit at a lake?

Or travel? Maybe a roadtrip or even flying somewhere new.

Or would you stay home and play LEGO, sleep in, order in your favorite food or have a few friends over?

And speaking of friends, if you could spend that free Saturday with anyone in the world, who would you pick?

I saw a very sweet commercial recently, where they asked a group of adults "If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be?"

They gave a wide variety of answers, famous people, inspirational leaders.

And then they asked their kids the same question.

Here is the commercial so you can see it.

It brings a tear to my eyes each time I watch it.

The kids don't hesitate, they think of their family first. Their moms and dads, extended family. Something everyday and ordinary is extraordinary for them.

What is nonsense?

If we look back at the list from before: sports, games, movies, hiking, sleeping, sitting, driving, playing in the sand or the dirt. These are simple things, even nonsensical things. We throw balls through hoops. We mine virtual blocks to build castles.

But these are the things we look forward to and they fill our days with color.

There's a Montessori concept that says, "Play is the work of the child."

We've had this little sign up in our son's room since he was a baby, as a reminder mostly to us as parents.

Play is serious. It's how children grow and learn. They get stronger and smarter, they cooperate and communicate, they build their confidence and they go out into the world to figure out who they are.

Just yesterday I was sitting in the backyard and watching my son and eight of our neighborhood kids play after school. They make up the craziest games, ride their bikes, bounce balls, play tag, race matchbox cars, make a cardboard obstacle course for our dog and argue and agree on wildly complicated rules for their silly little games.

At some point along the way, we adults start thinking play is just for kids. We do serious business and we just don't have time for that.

But we yearn for the nonsense. We watch sports all weekend because we want to see groups of grown adults toss a ball in just the right way so they win the big game. We pay lots of money and travel far and wide to see someone jump and dance and sing on a big stage so we can sing along.

In the last seven years since having our son, I've really enjoyed rediscovering nonsense.

We build LEGO together, massive sets ridiculous both in price and scale.

We 3D print toys and fun little things for him and his friends.

We built a little website for him this week which is full of delightful little clickable things: turtles and shooting stars, unlimited crabs on the sand and the letters of his name that play musical notes.

We just started playing Minecraft this month too, which is a first for me. It's truly nonsense. You dig blocks, build blocks and explore an endless world. When I show other adults what we are doing most quickly say, "What is the point?"

It's nonsense. That's the point. It's fun.

But here's the other secret.

Nonsense leads to other things you could never imagine.

Playing cards are just cardboard, but for millions of people they grow into joy and community.

The same goes for sports, the Olympics, music, movies, shows, the travel industry, videogames, concerts, and art in general.

Things start as nonsense and grow into something else.

I'm building a website with my son because I want to teach him how to code. But that's down the line. Right now, it just needs to be as fun as possible.

We started with nothing and together we brainstormed what the site could be. We started with an ocean because his name means "ocean" in Mongolian. At first it was simple, just an ocean with waves and a boat moving up and down. Now it has secrets and animations and sounds and fun things to click. All of those were his ideas. It's only been a week.

This morning he said, "Dada can you talk to your phone and ask it to make my website so the turtle has a baby turtle. And also I want to touch the boat and be able to drag it around the ocean."

I told him, "Of course we can do that."

And soon he will learn that he can too. He can talk to the design program and it will make the changes. And then he can tweak it bit by bit.

We find the things we really love by following the nonsense first.