Play is so magical, and yet, are you living a life today where you feel you have play? This has been one of my challenges: to just have fun, to let go, and to play. We are so conditioned into being serious, trying to accomplish goals, and living our life by the objectives of the mind. But in my experience, play and laughter are essential parts of a healthy life. I've read about people experiencing massive health benefits from it. I read about a man who, by his own account, recovered from a fatal disease by laughing and watching an hour of stand-up comedy every day.
In this serious world, some of us are so deep into being serious, focusing on accomplishing things and even on helping others, that we can forget: where is the fun? And I'm glad that today I found my fun.
The three music videos that came out of nowhere
I made three music videos on my original Jerry Banfield channel today. If you go down to my music channel, you'll find these three videos, and they were just rolling. The people watching live on Twitch were rolling with laughter. I even added a laugh track to these videos because they were so funny.
But how did I get to doing this? Just yesterday, I was recording a video, feeling bored and wanting to know where my creativity was. These songs are really original. I've never heard anything like them before. They're fun. There's a bunch of gibberish, crazy lyrics. And it happened because I showed up to my studio today and I was able to just play, to just have fun, to just screw around, and thankfully to be in a setup where I could record that and share it.
One of the things that's so often in scarcity in our lives is play. We look around and the world is so serious. I'm grateful that my children remind me of the essential nature of play.
The line from the Seth books that changed how I see it
I read this book from the Seth series. Seth is a channeled non-physical entity that was channeled through Jane Roberts, who wrote a bunch of these Seth books, and this one was about health. One of the best lines I took from that whole book is this: Seth says that the first sign that you are losing your life force, your health, your vitality, is that you stop playing and you analyze your personal problems. A focus on personal problems and a lack of play.
Since I read that, as a person who has been very serious and not very playful for a lot of the last few years, I've been asking myself: how can I play? How can I play and just have fun? What is play? And how do I let go of analyzing personal problems?
Now, yes, there is a certain amount of introspection that is helpful, where you look in the mirror and analyze what's going on and see if you can make any changes. But what I often see is that a lot of us go to one extreme or the other. Either we do none of that, never looking at ourselves, where it's always everybody else's fault. Or those of us who do look at ourselves get kind of narcissistic about it, in constant self-analysis, constantly finding problems. Like in Alcoholics Anonymous, the constant identifying of character defects. And what is the opposite of that? The opposite of that is just playing and having fun. I shared more about coming through that kind of serious self-focus in my reflection on 10 years sober, going from hopeless to happy, joyous, and free.
What play actually means
I'm grateful that with creating videos I have an outlet for this. I've made a lot of my videos very seriously. Even making this one, I'm communicating a very serious topic, but I'm hoping to help you find your inner play. What does it mean to play? It means to have fun, to do something that's worth doing, something where it just seems like there's nothing better to do in the world.
I'm grateful that today, after making 170 songs, I had this idea in my head that it would be really funny to make a song that's all random sounds. Normally you hear songs where people have tried to move every little thing into place and auto-tune it so it sounds like what somebody thinks of as perfect. But in the process, the fun of the music usually gets killed. What I loved most about music, especially rap music, was music that was funny. I've been wanting to make some comedy.
And what I'm getting at is that sometimes it's a magical path, one you are not able to map out in advance. You're not going to figure out exactly how to get there logically. It's almost completely magic how you get from one place to another in life. The intention I set was that I wanted to do something to help people laugh, I wanted to laugh more in my own life, and I wanted to help other people laugh. I was thinking about doing comedy, writing jokes, listening to comedy, but I've tried doing stand-up-style comedy before and I know that doesn't work very well for me.
Then I was just thinking, well, what's funny? What's humor? And I got the idea a couple of days ago: wouldn't it be funny if I just got on the mic in my studio and made some really random noises, made baby sounds, threw on a little beat, and just made something unusual? I had so much fun making that song, and I laughed, and I played it for my kids, and they thought it was funny and laughed a bunch listening to it. But at the time, I didn't think anything further of it.
God Mode, and the songs that surprised even me
Then I came on my live stream on Twitch today. I did a couple of crypto videos, I told some stories, and then I said, all right, let's make some music. Instead of trying to make a song that would get views, I started to think: what if I freestyled and just had fun? Instead of doing it the way I've seen it done a thousand times, where people try to put these polished lyrics together, what if I just freestyled and let it rip? What if I spoke a bunch of gibberish words? That would be so funny. And that's how I made this song called God Mode. It was so much fun, and it kind of took me and the audience by surprise. It was like, what is this? I've never seen anything like this, I've never heard anything like it, it was just hilarious. I thought, well, can I do that again? So I made two more songs, and I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.
I didn't set out to do this today specifically. I didn't plan on it. I'm so glad it happened. It felt like it just came out of me, and I didn't even know what was in there. What I find is helpful for playing is to set up space, to set up space where you can play, because playing is often a very vulnerable thing. You're being silly. This is why most people don't put out music like this, that's just very playful and crazy: people might laugh at it and make fun of it. The funny thing is that I didn't even really know what to play. I had to let myself feel out the feedback I was getting, and I found out that I actually didn't know what to do at first. So this is going to be a really fun thread in my life. I'm going to stick with this for years, and I'm really excited for what it will become, because I'll be sharing all of this with my friends in the community.
The one thing AI can't do
Part of what I keep asking is: what can I make that AI can't make? And I've found that currently one of the biggest weaknesses I see in AI is that AI is not funny. AI just is not funny. It cannot come up with its own jokes. Now, maybe more advanced AI will be able to make jokes, but jokes really require a deep understanding of the human experience. No matter how much text the AI crawls, if you ask it to make a joke, all it will do is crank out jokes it's already heard before. If you Google the joke it gives you, you can see it just took it from somewhere else. Where AI struggles is to be funny.
So I'm thinking about the future. What do we need in the future? We need play. We need funny. Because our kids so often get conditioned to stop playing, to sit still, to do what they're told, to be serious. And I've found that conditioning is some of the hardest to break. It's so normal for me to be serious that I don't even comprehend how I could play.
Making space, and why I'm here as a creator
I'm so excited because today I set aside space. I made space where I could play. And I've made a safe community on Twitch of people like Lisa and Kelly and SPBC who love all kinds of the crazy stuff that I do. If that sounds like your kind of fun, you can come play with us in the Jerry Banfield Family.
I watched a video yesterday that was really inspiring, by the creator of Patreon, talking about the death of the follow. While he doesn't think followers are necessarily going to die in terms of the follow button and how the web is set up, it is really important to think about, as a creator: why are you here? I've been really frustrated on YouTube, because YouTube, Facebook, all these platforms are set up to make their business successful, often at the expense of mine. I've been subconsciously just cranking out content designed to give YouTube what they want. But what about me?
So I'm glad that today I said, I'm going to come in here and make something that's fun. I'm going to make space to do something that is memorable, that is good for me, and that is good for my audience. And if it doesn't go viral or get as many views, then it doesn't matter. I'm making something for the people who follow me, the people who love me, and even just for me. I did a laugh track on those second two songs, laughing at my own song. I get into this same idea in having fun first as a creator and accepting the views you get. If you want to follow more of this side of my life, it all lives in my Life playlist.
So if there's anything you can get out of this, it's to lean into how magical life is. If you honestly realize that you're a serious person, that you're always taking life so seriously, then one of the biggest things you can do to change everything, from your attitude to your health to your relationships, is to make space for play. As I've focused on this, I've wanted to explore and be sensitive to the amount of play that's available in my life. I've also noticed how other people are more playful, and I've noticed opportunities to play more and have fun with the kids.
You'll know you're a serious person if it's hard to play
You'll know you're a really serious person if it's hard for you to even relax enough to play. Just a few months ago, I was noticing that I couldn't even play with my kids, because I was so serious. Then I heard a lady in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting share that spending five minutes trying to play with her kids was just like torture for her. And I'm like, wow, I actually relate to that way too much. I really want it to be super fun to play with my kids. I don't want it to be a chore. I want to be more playful myself.
So I'm super grateful, and I've noticed that music has been unlocking greater levels of play than I've known before. These videos are some of the videos I'm most proud of that I've made in a long time. Random, funny music videos. I'm really excited to share them. And it doesn't matter how many views I get on them. It matters that I had fun making them. Lisa had some great laughs, and SPBC and Kelly, while we were live on Twitch, and probably other people will have similar experiences. Making music like this came out of the same place I describe in asking for help and making music with joy.
Putting yourself in positions to laugh
SPBC says lots of laughing gives a reset, and me too. Intentionally putting ourselves in positions to laugh and play seems like one of the best things a lot of us can do to change our lives. I know this can feel very vulnerable and scary, when you realize, I have no idea what's fun anymore, I don't even remember how to play. But for me, just setting the intention has been the start: I want to have fun, I want to play, and I want to do it in a way that's considerate. I don't want to drive my car a hundred miles an hour down the road, because that might be fun for me but it's not considerate or safe for other people. So I want to play in a way that's fun, that's safe, that's enjoyable, and that adds value to others.
What I'm hoping is that in sharing this with you, you'll dig into where you can play more in your life, where you can have fun in your life. You might have to cut some busyness. You might have to cut some things you think you should do. It might be better to drop some time working to make space for this, because having a bunch of money while being sick and serious and not enjoying life is not the trade most of us want. I think most of us would rather be broke and be having fun and playing and enjoying our lives. But we don't have to make that choice today. We can have plenty of money and play and have fun and be healthy and have great lives.
I'll be releasing these songs, and I imagine we're going to crank out a bunch more like this going forward. I think we've found a formula, and now I want to hear a bunch more weird sounds and make even crazier songs than this. Lisa says, dance like nobody's watching. Exactly.
So I'm so grateful. I've laughed more today than I've laughed in a long time, and I encourage you to do the same. Find what's funny, find a way you can play. If you don't know where to start, start with what you know. Listen to some stand-up comedy, or set an intention, like, hey, universe, guide me to something that would be playful and fun for me. That's what I've done, and I hope it's good for you too. If you want more of this, come play with us.