Tap into the Power of Play
Wrapping up an exchange about the importance of play for children, a friend reminded me how important it is for us adults as well.
I can cite benefits I’ve found in quick online research. That it:?
But I haven’t delved into the primary research, so take those or leave them. All but the brain function one (which I don’t doubt but can’t know) seem intuitively obvious to me. On the final one, I love George Bernard Shaw’s take:
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
Those with kids have an obvious win-win in opportunities to play with their ankle-biters. I used to build Brio train tracks that rivaled the human small intestine for convoluted complexity. After my son stopped crying because I’d been hogging the design and build time, he quite enjoyed running the toy trains along it. Similarly, I built Lego houses that would have made Howard Roark proud. Hopefully most of you parents are better adjusted than I was, but hey, I DID play. And as I’ve chronicled elsewhere, my sons and I took Frisbee tossing to new heights.
But as adults, we don’t need kids to give us an excuse to play and keep us honest. There’s sport, song & dance, pets, and (these days) Guess Who’s Behind the Mask games that we can play spontaneously whenever we like. Just make fun! I subscribe to Charles Eisenstein’s definition of play versus entertainment:
Play is the production of fun; entertainment is the consumption of fun.
I would add a further dimension, analogous to our diets: for the most part, entertainment is the consumption of processed fun, while play is nearly always the production of home-made fun.
Play is our chance to indulge our in-built urge for spontaneous creativity, to embrace joy simply for its own sake. What greater invitation do we need?
But, of course, it does take time. In theory, one important reason for our work is to create time and other resources for play. But for many of us, the means swamp the end. Dare we bet the farm on having time and energy at the end of life to fit in all the play we’ve earned? I don’t know about you, but I prefer taking that play out in regular and chunky withdrawals!
One of the world’s oldest and most highly subscribed world-views even sees Lila--the spontaneous, creative play of the Divine--as the closest we’ll get to a purpose for life. On this view, our most playful moments are also our most real, valuable and pious ones.
Here is your invitation: Go make some fun!