the Way of the Showman 157 - Serious Play and The Road To Joy with Clay Hillman
Step aboard the Punky Steamer and watch everyday moments turn into portals. -> listen to the fantastic tale here!
I highly recommend checking this audio play out before listening to the episode. For one it’s awesome and for sure lots of what we talk about will feel deeper and make even more sense.
We sit down with Clay Hillman—once a Lutheran minister, now the imagination behind a toy-and-coffee shop and the audio adventure KC Bonker’s Road to Joy—to explore how play can be both serious and sacred. Clay’s world is richly built: a flying machine crewed by six archetypes of play, potions served with straight-faced wonder, and an audio play that clicks from past to present like a spell taking hold. The result is a practical philosophy of joy that you can taste, touch, and breathe.
Clay introduces the Aeronaut, Cartographer, Chronaut, Philosopher, Goggle Jockey, and Tinker—personae that map how children experiment and how adults find vocation. When we keep those roles playful, work feels like meaning rather than grind. We dig into “sacred toys” too: stick, string, plane, block, wheel, and ball. Open-ended objects invite agency; they don’t perform for you, they ask you to perform with them. That’s why a simple paper toy can outshine a pricey gadget—it expands your world instead of prescribing one.
Ritual ties it all together. In the shop, dragon blood, beetle juice, and unicorn milk layer in a glass until the final step demands your breath through a one-way straw. That small act completes the drink and inducts you into the story—breath revealing the invisible like a pinwheel turning wind into sight. We trace the same thread through vinyl records, soundscapes, and live showmanship where attention is the real currency. Presence isn’t forced; it’s designed through steps you choose to take.
If you’ve ever felt a toy hold more truth than a lecture, or a performance feel like a pact kept, this ride is for you. Hear how myth, craft, and commerce meet without losing soul, and pick out your own play archetype along the way. If it moves you, subscribe, share this episode with a curious friend, and leave a review telling us the one small ritual that brings you wonder.
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