A-Playful-Path_DeKoven-web

are assigned their own area and confined to a special set of rules. In like manner the judge,
lawyers, witnesses, the courtroom observers and even the accused and accuser all have roles
and rituals which help establish a sustainably focused, confluential community.
Casinos, coffee shops, courtyards, clubhouses, and cruise ships; restaurants and night clubs;
hotels, resorts, arcades, classrooms, playgrounds, cafeterias, assembly halls, recreation centers,
retreat centers, kitchens, parks, family rooms, conference rooms, movie theaters, child care
centers, fitness centers, museums, hotel lobbies, libraries, shopping centers, public squares,
food courts, hospitals and fire stations; our culture rests on institutions that foster confluence.
Confluence plays an equally central role in family and marital relationships, and is also supported
by very clearly defined rituals and occasions. Celebrations, outings, eating together,
playing and working together, even lying around in front of the TV together; all make the
experiences of confluence more accessible to those participating in the relationship.
Confluence plays a similarly central role in animal life. Ants and bees, herd animals and
monkeys, fish and birds are all drawn together by the transcendent joy of confluence, even
when they’re only flocking around.
Then there’s education, politics and religion: the rituals, officials, costumes, ceremonies, edifices…
Don’t get me started.
The experience of confluence is the glue that binds us to a social setting, the promised reward
that keeps us seeking each other out. Being involved in something together, feeling something
together, experiencing togetherness, we feel safer, stronger, we transcend the limits of
self.
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