PoP Book 06.2s MidRes - Flipbook - Page 20
•
‘The first main characteristic of play (is) that it is
free, is in fact freedom.’
Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens
The opposite of play is often thoughtlessly clichéd as work. Really it’s
fear or depression, or both. Aid workers all agree that when conflicttraumatised children start to play again, they’ve begun their journey back
to health. As in other playing species, observable play only happens for
humans once basic needs have been satisfied; when body and spirit are
free from stress. But it’s a classic fault to narrowly identify play just with
outward behaviours we can see.
To play is to be freed from restrictions, with an unbounded sense of
1.10
possibility. This is the evolutionary value of play as an attitude: it makes
us flexible. In play mode we’re much more sensitively attuned to the
world, filled with fresh ways of relating to people, ideas and situations.
In a life where it’s all too easy to become rigid and brittle over time,
one slip on the road can smash you to pieces. The flexible, pliant person
— the player — will always bounce back up.
The media theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s take is that the player is also
a naturally ethical person. Viewing life through the prism of play, you’re
freed to do more meaningful things. He describes how even life-anddeath care work can be carried out in a spirit of play. “When you’re not
worried about your survival as an individual… you have the luxury to
behave ethically because it’s just more fun to live that way.” Watch something like Human Flow, the artist Ai WeiWei’s incredible film about
migration with this in mind, and you’ll see the spiritual openness and
honesty of the play attitude. You could say it’s a perfect route to the
self-actualisation Abraham Maslow had at the peak of his pyramid.16
•
So, are we saying play is firstly a life philosophy?
Of course it’s this too. In there with everything else the word has come to
mean, it’s a mode of living we all inherit but some of us leave behind as
we age. But it’s also in play, and probably only in play, that we can be truly
original, creatively.17 And that’s because it’s in a play-state that the whole
personality is expressed. Since our real desires lie below the tide-line of
SA
MP
LE
MP
SA MP
A
LE S
MP LE S
SA MP LE
A
LE S MP LE
MP LE SA MP
SA MP LE SA MP
A
A
LE S MP E S
L
MP LE SA MP LE S
SA MP LE SA MP E
L
A
A
LE S AMP LE S MP LE
A
LE S MP LE S MP
MP LE SA MP E SA
Click
to buy
1.11
in full!
consciousness, the person who appears through creative play is the core
and authentic one. The real deal.
What is Play? / Elephant
24
