The Explore-Anything Game

This is a game to play with kids ages 3-103 to have interesting conversations while exploring the world.

I made it up today, Jan 30, 2013. The idea came from reading Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, by Wilber. I thought of it when a reporter posted the question, "Have Any Good Parenting Tips?"

Every "thing" - a person or plant or object or even a word or idea:

does stuff by itself
does stuff with other things that are different or the same
is part of various groups
is made up of things, or parts, working together

Player 1- Name a thing. This can be any particular person or animal or plant of object, or a kind of person, animal, plant or object, or a concept or idea. It can be part of one of these, or a collection. ANYTHING. School, freedom, boy, nose, bug, tail, city, graduates, niceness, fear, car, tire, fleet, and on and on.

Player 2- Say what it does mostly by itself (even though almost nothing is really done alone.) For instance, stretching involves both you and space... Be generous about the rules. Like walking is okay, even though we use the floor or ground for it. Say a bunch of things until you can't think of any more for 3 seconds.

Next player 1- Say some more things it does by itself. And back and forth until you all can't think of any more.

When the number of things to say is pretty well exhausted, the next person (after the last one who contributed something) says some things it does with others. A dog fetches balls and runs after or sniffs other dogs, chases after squirrels, barks at sounds, eats its food, etc. Take turns again until you've said it all.

Next, go to things it's part of. A leaf is part of a tree, a compost pile, an area of shade, the ecosystem, a painting... As above, take turns until you can't think of any more.

Next, go to things it's made of. A city is made of people, blocks, buildings, streets, groups of workers, taxes, laws, parks...

There are many ways to continue. With young kids, when you're done with a thing, you can move on to another thing. Or, you can move always to pick one of the things its part of and keep moving up to bigger and bigger collections. Or you can always move down to one of its parts. Or, you can move sideways, to something it interacts with.

What interesting about this is that any "thing" is actually a pattern. There's no you, there's your feet and hands and brain and organs and personality and quirks and thoughts. We call that collection, or pattern, "you". And, the hand doesn't exist. It's really skin and flesh and muscle and fat and nerves and bone. And none of those things exist, except as patterns. Most are cells. And the cells don't exist- they're just collections or patterns of molecules. We know molecules are just patterns of atoms. And we think atoms are patterns of quarks. And quarks seem now to be patterns of "strings". And strings? I could make up what they're patterns of, but it's pretty close to "nothing"...

So you are just a pattern of patterns, each of which is a pattern of patterns, etc, etc. (Sorry if I've spoiled the first 100 or so pages of the book...)

Enjoy,
-Rand

PS: I have copyright to this. If you want to publish it, you must
A) Mention that "Randy Strauss" invented it.
B) Think of me fondly, like I think of you.