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There comes a point where you move beyond jet-lag, into straight up nocturnal living.

Guys – I am at that point.

As I write this, it’s 4:45 in the morning. Honestly, I have woken up at this hour more often than I’ve stayed up this late. But I figured, since I am wired and awake, and somewhat delirious, what better to do than write a new blog post?

(Did I mention I’m somewhat delirious?)

A few days ago, I got home from a trip to China. My partner and I went to Shanghai for the Buddhism and New Technology Conference where we were both presenting. Now, you can probably garner just by writing, that I am not much for the typical “conference presentation.” I don’t care to memorize lines, I don’t “do” bullet points, and PowerPoints are just not my thing.

So I decided to shake things up a bit, and make my little segment somewhat interactive. I said a few words of introduction, and then had the attendees, stand up (some of whom had literally been asleep, and had to be roused) and introduce themselves to those around them. Meet their fellow conference goers. You know, mingle. We then played a walloping good fun improv warm up game, and then a partnered game to dive a bit deeper into connection.

Here’s the twist: at least half of the audience were Chinese and A) didn’t speak English fluently, or at all, and B) come from a totally different cultural background.

A friend who stood in the back of the auditorium said “As soon as you said ‘hey everyone, let’s connect,’ I thought you were in trouble.” Because, let’s face it, some blonde, clearly-American-hippy-dippy-chic with a weird sense of humor tells you to stand up, and connect with strangers, in China, this is pretty out of the norm.

But as my friend watched, and after the first game (which is utterly ridiculous and involves a lot of movement and silly noise making), he watched the cultural barriers dissolve; he watched everyone loosen up.

And lo and behold – we were connecting!

Of course, immediately after my little 20 minutes was over, the crowd went back into “Conference Mode” and studiously resumed their seats and positions. But for that short time, we weren’t a room of separate, isolated little parts; we were cohesive. And we weren’t a room divided by race, sex, or religion; but were connected by the simple act of playing.

That’s why I love what I do so much – my work, my writing – is really just playing. It’s exploring whimsical worlds and (hopefully!) touching people’s hearts through laughter, lightness, and universal truths, best left expressed through story.

Play, to me, is one of the most connecting forces in the universe, no matter how old you are or where you’re from. We can all speak this language.

Now here’s the part where I’d love to wrap this thing up with a neat little platitude, like “People are our most important asset” or “Takes money to make money” (not sure how that second one fits in here. IT IS 5 AM.) But instead, I’ll leave you with this:

How can you invite more play into your life? What might that do for your connections with others? With yourself?

After all (and here’s that platitude): Life is too important to be taken seriously.*

*Oscar Wilde wrote this, likely not at 5(:15 now!) in the morning.

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My lovely agent, Jill Corcoran, recently suggested to me that I “build more of an online presence.”

An innocuous suggestion, but to my ears, it may as well have been “build an army and overthrow capitalism.”

In other words: a big project.

So here I am today, knee-deep in writing articles, posting on Facebook, emailing back and forth, and Tweeting my heart out, and I just thought I’d take a quick break to ask you writers, artists, or businessfolks out there:

How the hell do you do it?

Moving from the creative and cushy cloud world of illustrating my book, Call Me Perfect, into marketing head space feels like hard edges and scraped shins. Don’t get me wrong, when I get into the flow of a project, I am there, and only there exists. But when I am finished with it, and I take a look at the rest of the list of Things To Do in order to “build more of an online presence” my heart starts beating a little faster.

Tweet

Post

Email

Tweet

Post

Email

And on, and on.

I tell you: I’ll be happy when one day soon I have a team to help me with all of this.

But at least for today, I can check “Blog Post” off the list.

Note from the Editor (That’s me):

Dear reader,

Do you love the world of marketing? Do you get tickled with your PR prowess? I’d love some help in gaining more of an audience and online presence. Let me know if this is something you, or someone you know, might be interested in. ❤

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I think a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed right now. Maybe even a little hopeless. These feelings, more than any others I know, tend to sort of permeate the air – they’re catching; they spread.

I’m feeling hopeless today. I really am.

I had a conversation last night with someone about diet. The more we got to talking, the more I realized, this person – this seemingly happy and cheerful person – has an eating disorder. She’s fooling herself into believing that she’s finally found a miracle food plan that works! But – she’s hurting her body.

And she has no idea.

I thought about it all night, and all of today. I can’t get it out of my mind. We live in a society where fad diets (namely, diets that cut out complete food groups [excluding sugar]) as miracle life cures. There are fad diets that cut out fruit; some that cut out all carbs; all animal products; even all white foods.

It struck me as so very painful, because it’s just normal. Almost everyone I know is either on a diet, or has been on a diet, or is on a diet and doesn’t even know it. The restrictive diet has become their lifestyle – and that lifestyle is now disordered eating.

To be clear, I am NOT talking about healthy eating habits – this is a sustainable lifestyle choice, and can only improve your energy and overall health.

I am talking about restrictive diets – things that eliminate major, important food groups. Like healthy fats, like healthy proteins, like healthy complex carbs. They can’t last forever, and when they stop lasting, it’s either because the person’s body just can’t take it anymore and begins craving the nutrition it’s not getting SO badly, the person must give in. (Often plaguing that person with guilt and self-hatred – “How did I let this happen? I was doing so well!” But rest assured – YOUR BODY KNOWS WHAT IT NEEDS!)

And sometimes, it ends only when that person dies – like Steve Jobs, for example, who famously died of Pancreatic Cancer (one of the ultimate, horrific side effects of the Fruitarian Diet.)

This all comes up so painfully for me, because I KNOW this pain. I was bulimic growing up and anorexic for much of my 20s. I know this pain, and you do, too, whether you’re aware of it or not. It’s a collective pain – a collective sickness – that in hundreds of not-so-subtle ways effects us all.

More than ever, I want to help people – which is why February 5th I’m launching a Kickstarter for my book, Call Me Perfect. It’s book for kids and teens on body image and self-love. I won’t talk about it much here, because I’m sure by the end of the campaign, you all will be simply sick of hearing about it.

But god, I hope it helps. I hope it’s huge. I hope every kid in the world can read it. Because this pain? This collective need to be perfect (i.e. thin)? It is literally killing us.

We’ve got to make this stop.