Play

Other books have urged the incorporation of more play into health and fitness routines, school activities, work activities, and of course social activities. Play is more engaging, easier to persevere with, more relaxing and stimulating and creative. It helps you to think differently.

We use the term to mean many things: hobbies, games, dancing, role-playing, roughhousing and other unstructured physical exercise (alone or socially), story-telling and other imagining and innovating activities, joking, flirting and other empathic activities, using toys, and a variety of sports and recreational activities. We say we ‘play’ a musical instrument. We contrast it to work, which is ‘serious’ activity. Yet for many play is fiercely competitive, and for them it is only ‘fun’ if you win. Is this still play?

A few years ago I wrote about Tom Robbins’ concept of ‘crazy wisdom’:

Hmmm. For many people I know, what should properly be play (i.e. joyous and fun) is instead essential therapy for coping with their Weltschmerz:

• Our commercial entertainments are ultra-violent and escapist (to inure us to the pain of everyday modern living?)
• Comedies are cruel put-downs of caricatures, whose sole function seems to be to make those with low self-esteem feel that at least someone is stupider or more ridiculous than they are.
• Sports are either so competitive as to provoke fights and tantrums, or so ‘extreme’ as to provoke near-cardiac arrest. This is supposed to be fun? And what exactly is a ‘spectator sport’ anyway — vicarious play?
• Video games are addictive, needing no imagination and little real social interaction, and seem to test one’s capacity to manage chronic excessive adrenaline flow rather than evoking anything that could be called real pleasure.
• In fact, a lot of ‘recreational activities’ (what exactly is being ‘recreated’ here?) are addictive — gambling, drug use, overeating, and shopping probably being the big 4 — and I don’t believe that when you can’t stop doing something it’s still ‘play’.
• Sex is portrayed as desperate, cathartic, even painful. Is this a realistic portrayal what happens in most of the world’s bedrooms — a stress-busting, power-displaying, skill-testing, sleep-inducing ‘workout’, when it should be play, fun, and full of laughter? If so, no wonder it’s disappeared from so many relationships, and has driven so many to consume performance-enhancing drugs.
• I suspect exactly the same can be said of the dating ‘game’.
• “Work hard play hard” is presented as the model for leaders. But to me if you work that hard, you’re probably not working smart. And isn’t gentle play more fun?

In short, I think we’ve lost the practice, and forgotten the meaning, of play.

While I agree with John Perry Barlow that we should not pursue happiness for its own sake, I do think we should make more time for play.

How might we do this? I think most of us could probably learn from the masters — young children. Engaging with them, making stuff up with them, or just playing non-competitive games like hide & seek, can re-teach us the value of imagining just for fun. And the key to real play is imagination. And with children of course, the sillier the better.

Practicing a piece of music a thousand times is work, and while it is admirable if it leads to excellence, it is hardly play. Improvising with other musicians, on the other hand, just jamming and making it up as you go along is play — just look at the faces of those participating and you’ll know that immediately.

Companion animals (and even watching wild creatures) can also teach us about play. It’s how young creatures learn, effortlessly and safely and joyfully, but even older creatures indulge often in play, especially when they’re around the young.

Other improvisational activities — dancing, flirting, role-playing — balance imagination (breaking the rules and making stuff up) with the social and physical constraints (‘rules’) of each activity. The tension between them — knowing when to do what’s expected and when to interject the unexpected — is what makes them playful. The role-playing I do in the virtual world Second Life is most enjoyable when it’s creative, whimsical, clever — our island is mostly natural but has a kitschy flying submarine. Likewise, carnivals and masquerade parties and murder mystery evenings give you the chance tobe someone else — to get outside yourself and flex your imagination.

What other ideas do you have that could help us all put more play into our lives?