Approaching the thing with lightness

I was thinking about how when you go to a thing in a really serious way, much is lost. The edge is missing. The mystery waiting to reveal itself, never will. The chance at discovery vanishes.

It's like if you're doing a painting and you absolutely have this image in mind and you won't deviate or allow for surprises, you'll end up with a less interesting piece. That's my experience anyway.

I think that its got to do with playfulness. So when you get all serious and grim about something, say education, or changing the world, it gets really boring for you and everyone involved.

And as Karlsson on the Roof (Astrid Lindgren) has been known to say, "If there's no fun, I won't stay." Something like that. It's my motto for this week. And that goes with my idea of not taking myself so seriously.

What do schools do? They make learning dull.

Now look at how my daughter learns about the axis powers without ever having being bored in a history lesson- she watches Hetalia!
http://www.tegmentum.net/hetaliaeps.html
Here's a short description from Wiki:
Axis Powers Hetalia (ヘタリア Axis Powers Hetaria Akushisu Pawāzu) is a webcomic, later adapted as a manga and an anime series, by Hidekaz Himaruya (日丸屋秀和 Himaruya Hidekazu). The series presents an allegorical interpretation of political and historic events, particularly of the World War II era, in which the various countries are represented by anthropomorphic characters. Hetalia (ヘタリア) is a portmanteau combining hetare (へタレ, Japanese for "unreliable") and Italia (イタリア). This is to make light of Italy's apparent cowardice during World War II.

So in grade 10 history at the high-school she goes to- who has the highest mark in the class? She does with a 97% average.

I like to think of it as approaching what we do with lightness rather than heavy handedly. To quote again and this time accurately from that fat, chubby, man Karlsson, "Easy, just easy now."