Episode
Playing in Polarizations
- Published
- Sep 13, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 2259
- Processing state
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- https://amykisei.substack.com/p/playing-in-polarizations
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Summary
Polarization & Play Polarization (def)— division into two sharply contrasting groups, sets of opinions or beliefs. When we stop seeing similarity or what is shared, but only see difference. When difference becomes a threat. Play (def)— to engage in something for enjoyment or for sport. Be cooperative. Try something out. I want to say, we are living in a polarized time. But I find myself questioning each word. I look for polarization and find it in my social media feed, in the news, in my own inner dialogue —as certain views and opinions claim their rightness about what I should or should not do, believe or say. But, I don’t see such polarization in the setting sun, the migrating monarch butterfly who is sitting on this sunflower, here in my front garden. It seems like the monarch, the sun, the sky and serenading cicadas are not so concerned with the rifts of mind or media feed. Is it disrespectful to place play near the gravity of polarization, when Webster warns that play has nothing to do with serious things and when politicians are using words like “civil war?” Play is actually an important quality for awakening, for living in divisiveness—for it is an invitation to bring curiosity to righteousness, shame spirals, fear loops and the other players in polarized thinking. Play as Liberation The play I want to invite is the play of liberation. The play that is invoked in the Mahayana Sutra of Vimalakirti. A sutra that emerged in an in-between-time in Buddhist history. Where there were forces in power who believed they had the “right” teachings, the correct practices to transcend this painful world of suffering and enter nirvana. Yet another view was emerging right in the midst of the dominant one. A view that seemed to turn the whole tradition on its head. A view, a pra…