How often do you play? No, I don’t mean downtime, set up in front of the TV, guzzling a beer and stuffing your face with Cheetos. That’s not play. What I’m talking about is the free, unstructured, active pursuit of exploration, imagination, and the enjoyment of life. Play requires participation. It’s active, engaging, and is not at all passive. It’s not what happens when you zone out while scrolling your instagram feed for the hundredth time today.
It seems like so many people have forgotten how to play. Between self-imposed restrictions that adults often use as excuses, and the obsession with passive tech use that has young people in a choke-hole, real genuine play is going by the wayside. As someone who writes a creativity blog, of course I’m going to argue that this trend is detrimental to fostering imagination and out-of-the-box thinking. Lack of play destroys artists and innovators. However, I think play is even more essential to humanity than that. Play is what connects us to our souls. It is an essential expression of who we really are, and therefore allows us to connect with ourselves, free of outside (or self-imposed) restrictions.
Renowned author, Ursula K. Le Guin said the following about playing through the imagination:
“The imagination is an essential tool of the mind, a fundamental way of thinking, an indispensable means of becoming and remaining human.”
I agree. To play is essential to be human. Of course you won’t die if you stop playing like you would if you stopped eating food or drinking water. But perhaps who are as as humans — and not just breathing meat sacks — might disappear. Okay, that’s a bit blunt, but really what is life if all we are here for is to keep ourselves alive? Why do we stay alive? For what experience?
I’ll back myself up here and include another quote, this time from a psychologist.
The drive to play freely is a basic, biological drive. Lack of free play may not kill the physical body, as would lack of air, food, or water, but it kills the spirit and stunts mental growth. ” — Peter Gray, Contemporary American psychologist
To disconnect from our souls is to kill the spirit, and who wants to live in a world like that? I’d argue it’s partly to blame for our collective apathy toward global humanitarian crises, our normalization of catastrophic events, and the growing trends around isolationism, small living, and labeling ambitious or curious people as ‘try-hards’. It’s suddenly become cool to be the most compliant, rules-oriented, boring person who never asks questions or wants to experience more in life. I guess that’s what happens when culture teaches entire generations to be passive viewers and to accept what is presented to them as fact. The magic, motivation, creativity, curiosity, exploration, activism, and play all disappear — and so does our empathy, it seems.
So why do we give up play so easily? Cultural reasons aside, I think individuals give up the idea of play mostly as an excuse, and out of fear. It’s common that the most practical person in your life, the one who likely gave up on their own dreams, is also the least creative, the least curious, and the least open to taking risks. They’re probably the first to label something as ‘silly’ or ‘inappropriate’, and love the phrases ‘why would you do that?’ and ‘we don’t need that!”. Perhaps they whole-heartedly believe that play is something for children, or that adults shouldn’t waste their time with unproductive activities like drawing or singing, simply for the joy of it. Perhaps they’ve cut themselves off from feeling that kind of joy entirely — after all, it’s not very practical, is it? By suggesting that play (and by association: creativity, curiosity, experimentation, expression, etc…) are silly or useless or for kids, these people give themselves a massive ego boost, the feeling of being right, justification of being risk-adverse, and prevent fear of failure — this all wrapped up together in one big shiny package with a ribbon on top. Unfortunately, they also miss out on engaging in life. They miss out on themselves. And they miss out on a heck of a lot of joy, love, and fulfillment.
I think that’s why those of us who have held on to play and creativity as adults can’t live without it. We know what it’s like to be fully engaged with our souls and with the world. We can’t convince ourselves that we could live without it because we’ve already tasted how wonderful it is to live fully with it. We can’t go back to any lesser way. It would be — quite literally — soul crushing.
So how do we make play a regular part of our lives? Remember, play is active, not passive. And no, I don’t expect a lot of us adults to suddenly start using sticks as fake guns and chase each other around our backyards… although you could! Start by going for a walk in nature, then literally stop and smell the roses. Engage with life, notice which flowers you like and which you don’t. Maybe talk to a squirrel…. or perhaps just your pet. Go out dancing! Sing in the shower! Paint, doodle, write, carve, sculpt, garden, travel, bake, do a poetry slam, sing karaoke, dye your hair, start a conversation group, take up flamenco lessons, hike the camino, pick wildflowers for your kitchen table. Play is about freely engaging in life. There are no mistakes, only curiosity and exploration. Discover who you are and discover others in the process. Create. Find Joy. Feel.
I’ll end with one last quote, this time from Jill Vialet, founder of Playworks:
“Play matters because people matter. It reminds us of our interdependence and gives us a chance to really see other people. And in turn, to be really and truly seen.”
To see and be seen — isn’t that the human experience boiled down to its essence? So if you’re feeling suck in life, or like things have become mundane, now you know what to do. Write it down on the schedule if you have to, and mark it as a priority. Play is as essential to human life as anything else we see as necessarily. It’s the foundation to everything we keep ourselves alive for.
Press PLAY.