When Mozart Played Nintendo

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star”: so began one of the multiple lullaby songs we listened to as kids when our parents put us to sleep. As youngsters, we dreamt about being able to fly, we fantasized about being able to do magical tricks and we speculated about potential encounters with strange monsters.?During the day, we would play games: policemen vs. thieves, tag along, solving murder mysteries and more.

?At this young age, our minds were not constrained by what should be, and instead we spent most of our time, playing, drawing, and having fun: we focused on what could be.

?As time went by, we learned right from wrong, and we were trained to be “logical and respectable”. We internalized our parents discipline expectations, repressed our anger and aggressive drives, as well as unacceptable erotic drives. The mechanism for accomplishing this is what Sigmund Freud called the super ego. The latter kept a check on our unconscious, making sure that the image we presented into the world was something according to society’s norms.

?As we duly complied with our parental demands –and those placed on us by the super ego- we gradually lost our sense of play and replaced it with a sense of duty. A certain formality set in. We embraced the traditions and rituals inherent to our culture, as they provided the comfort of guiding posts along the uncertain terrain of life.

?And yet, a sense of play is crucial for creativity to flourish by fostering the strange connections between disparate domains inside our brains. In our normal functioning mode, we tend to stick to more traditional / safe ideas. But when we lose some of these mental inhibitions, it is as if suddenly “channels” between our different “mental buckets” form, allowing us to come up with novel thoughts.

?In the 18th century, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the most creative and prolific composers of the era. If there is something that distinguished Mozart from other composers is the playfulness of his music: his themes mix humor, eroticism, exotic locations and unusual languages. His compositions' unusual mix of elements sometimes severely upset the orthodoxy of the time.

In the 20th century, playfulness was epitomized by Nintendo. The company went from being a playing card manufacturer to becoming one of the leading video game designers in the world. Their first breakthrough hit was a game called Donkey Kong, designed by Shigeru Miyamoto. The game was a love triangle between a gorilla, a carpenter and a woman. Miyamoto was influenced by “Beauty and the Beast”, “Popeye” and the 1933 film “King Kong” for this title… A playful combination that allowed for an incredibly playable game.

Perhaps playfulness is also a means to allow deeper connections between our conscious and unconscious minds. Some psychoanalysts estimate that up to 85% of our mental processes take place in the latter. And because the unconscious is not under the direct command of the superego, it might be easier for these strange mental connections to happen, eventually surfacing into our conscious brains; if we create some cracks to let them surface. Federico Fellini, one of the top filmmakers of the 20th century, had a detailed journal of his dreams, complete with notes and drawings. These dreams were the basis of some of his most successful movies.

So, should you be thinking about stocking your office with pinball machines, stuffed toys and lava lamps in order to incentivize creativity? Not necessarily. Fostering an environment of playfulness means providing your team with psychological safety, a sense of levity in interactions, the possibility of learning from failure, as well as space to explore, discuss and think.

If Mozart had been born today, perhaps we would have been a successful rock music composer and avid Nintendo player. Or perhaps his operas would contain ideas from “Gone With the Wind”, “Finding Nemo” and “Toy Story”. What remains without a doubt, is that he would be as playful as ever.

“No matter what happens, always keep your childhood innocence. It's the most important thing.” – Federico Fellini

“I think that inside every adult is the heart of a child. We just gradually convince ourselves that we have to act more like adults.” – Shigeru Miyamoto