'Playing' with your figures

[Red Laser]

I last had a battle before I moved out of my flat I used my custom SAS jeep and the Mudbuster as support/troop transports with Steeler in his custom MOBAT as heavy weapons versus my Cobra soldiers led by my custom Krake it was a fun afternoon.

[Chopper]

What's the point of having all these toys if you don't play with 'em?

C'mon chaps. The first thing I did when I got my first Skystriker was run through the house making jet noises and missile sounds. Its liberating and it stirs the imagination. I too prefer loose figures, Hopper. For the same reason. When you blokes set up those Dio's, don't tell me there isn't any takka, takka, takka along the way? Like Rene I stretch the imagination when I'm displaying them, I've been redoing my shelves for a week and you can't help but play with them as you go.

They were bloody cool in the 70's and 80's and they are just as cool now. Seems right to play with them, otherwise its just depriving kids of their play things.

[DAMartin]

I still tend to play with my figures, but I have the problem of having unfinished stories at night; I must find ways to leave the figures arranged in a way to remind me who is where, while at the same time keeping them away of the puppies (right now, I'm into a TF storyline and a Joe one that happen in parallel)

[Thundershot]

Ironic really, children use play as a rehearsal to prepare for adult life.. adults use play to escape from it.

[Jimbobx]

Yet the Forum is itself a manifestation of the toys being played with in the manner of a most serious child. At a certain level.

Probably why it got broken once or twice.

Brilliant

[Lady Jaye]

When we mature, our brains seem to cease to be able to do this

The biggest part of that change is induced by society. We were taught by our parents to act normal, become a decent citizen, get married, have kids, work hard and shut up. Make believe, letting go, act on impulses, it was all hammered out.

As an improv actor it takes a hell of a lot of training to (partly) regain those abilities. Some abilities are lost forever. In some cases on stage you are easily beaten by a three year old.

I am pretending to play, not actually doing so. I have lost that ability.

It is literelly impossible to play like you did when you were a child. If you're in the mood you can come close, but it never gets the same. Impossible. As you grow up your brain physically changes. In nature child's play is to exercise real life situations in a sandbox. At puberty hormones take over and the time has come to spread your wings and fly. Adults that still act like little children have brain development issues.

[Chopper]

I don't believe that for a second. You hit on it in your first paragraph, we succumb to peer pressure to conform, more so as adults than children or teens. I prefer to tell society to f*ck off, I will define what I approve of. That's being more adult than most adults.

The more people that do, the better. That control is just a path to subservience, freeing your mind to possibilities is growing up and few people I know have done it. Everything that has been discovered and learnt were by people that could do that in spite of any fear of persecution for doing it. A wise person once said that for people to grow we must evolve to a society of individuals and privacy is the key to that. It is the weak that are scared by what it is they are not.

Damn, that got deep for a Thursday night. I'm off to play with my toys.

[Lady Jaye]

It's not a matter of believe it or not.

You can think/behave childish, but it is biological impossible as a sane normal adult to think as a child. Simply because your brain is not the same anymore. As you mature your brain changes and gets more and more hardwired. If your brain is still the same, then it did not develop properly.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/t ... brain1.htm
http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familylife/tech_ ... al_cortex/

Not a single person on this forum is capable of truly behaving like a child. We relive and cherish our childhood, but that's something completely different.

[Chopper]

It depends how you define "think as a child", that is quite difficult to quantify. In the context of this discussion, can we still play as kids? My kids think so and I/we sure as sh*t have fun with my son having dogfights in the backyard. Maturity is different. All the great inventors and discoverers had the ability to imagine beyond what they were taught or had experienced. For most, being taught is a sure fire way to cripple and control creativity. Unless, you get the odd teacher who is capable of the same. And that's rare IME.

[Lady Jaye]

Can we still play as a child. The answer is no. Can we still play like a child. The answer is yes.
It is great that your kids think you can, but as an adult you're no longer truly capable of what they are.

Thinking beyond boundaries as an adult is a totally different discussion.