Weathering worry
This activity is reproduced with permission from the board game "Kookception: Philo at play" created by our community partner Brila's using their philocreation approach.
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| Objective: To expand your concept of worry by stretching it in all directions through fun thinking mini-missions! |
Duration: 15 to 45 minutes
Material:
Sheets of paper and pen
Coloured pencils and markers
Your imagination
Instructions:
Mission 1: Define the concept. Imagine a very curious alien who wants to understand the human world, but who doesn't have the same concepts on their planet. How would you explain worry to them by giving a definition of the concept and examples from planet Earth? Keep track of all your ideas because they will be useful for the following activities, like Creative Conception and Creative Construction!
Mission 2: Imagine the concept. If the concept of worry were a living creature, what would it look like and why? Close your eyes and visualize how it would act and speak, also thinking about its attitude and life plans. Then imagine that worry kept a daily diary. What might one of its entries sound like? Write out a page of worry’s diary, trying to imitate its tone and capture some of its reflections on its day! What would it write about and why? Would the diary help calm it down… or only make things worse?
Mission 3: Compare the concept. It’s sometimes by making comparisons that you can discover new ideas! In this game of wacky metaphors, your task is to make a connection between the concept and something completely different: If worry were a weather condition… what kind of weather would it be and why? Describe the forecast as if you were a weather announcer on television: what is the temperature, what does the sky look like, is there precipitation—like a tension storm or panicky rain drops? And, most importantly, how do you recommend that people prepare for this day in terms of their clothing, their commute plans and their accessories?
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Bonus: Are you still overflowing with ideas? Then imagine that worry wanted to be the mayor of its village. What would its platform be—that is, its main priorities as a leader and the changes it would want for its community? Now picture worry getting ready for its first big speech in front of the whole town! How would it feel and why? Visualize its thought process and emotions right before going on stage. You can even write a part of its speech… and perform it as if you were the conceptual creature itself! |
| Tricks for tots: Have you ever heard of a worrywart? It’s a word to describe a person who worries all the time about every single thing! To help with your missions, why not start by pretending you are a worrywart, as if it’s a strange little creature that is always fretful, flustered and frazzled? Think of what you do in a typical day, but describe it from the perspective of a worrywart, making sure to show how every activity causes you stress, jitteriness and big, bad knots in your stomach… even if it isn’t worrisome at all! |
| Tips for teens: In philosophy, a slippery slope argument is a kind of thinking error—what’s called a logical fallacy—that causes people to exaggerate the effects of an action to such an extent that the final outcome often seems amplified, even absurd… and seemingly a reason to worry. A common example from a parent’s viewpoint might not be news to you: “If I let my teenager play this one video game, next thing I know, he’ll stop playing sports, get really unfit and overweight, lose all motivation, fail out of school, never get a job, and wreck his whole life.” Clearly, it seems like quite a leap from the first step of videogaming to a life in ruins. But sometimes, when we worry, we can be guilty of making thinking mistakes like these! Can you think of times in your past when a slippery slope affected you—either because you were overly worried or someone else was? How could that error have been avoided? |
Share your creative reflections by sending them via email.
Include photos of your projects and notes of your thoughts, as well as your first name and your age!
