An Exploration of Play . How can we cultivate play in our adult lives?

Do you long to invite play into your life as much as your children do? I do. After 20 years of studying, exploring and thinking about the idea of play from various viewpoints, the time has come to investigate why this subject matters to me so deeply.

Children play for the sake of it, and by saying this, I don’t mean to undermine play, rather the opposite. Children don’t only play when it is authorised or allowed, and so play can become a rebellious act. They play spontaneously, whenever an everyday life prompt happens to connect with their appetite for creativity. There is no reasonable or rational need behind play;
it is just an unnecessary ornament of life. I have the feeling that play is important to humans on a deep level.

I would love to share the results of my exploration, and to look at what is in the way of giving play a more generous place in our lives. What might it look like to surrender to play?

Play in our daily lives

When we think about play, we instantly think about children. However, adults engage in play too. Play seems widespread in our capitalist society. In adult life, we can find playfulness in competitive sports, video games, gambling or social media. We might be pulled into team- building exercises or ‘playful’ corporate events. We can express ourselves through our fashion and culture choices, and we are bombarded with witty advertising. But is this truly what we mean by play? I believe that capitalism uses the fun and light language of play, emptied of its substance, to increase and incite consumerism. This is not a new observation – the French situationists made it sixty years ago – but it feels more and more relevant.

Children and play

Many scholars have closely examined play, mostly in relation to children’s development. 
After all, children are the first human beings we consider when reflecting on play. Children often mimic adults when they play. In imaginary play, they can experience various roles and scenarios: taking care of younger ones, getting married, going to work, possessing the knowledge and confidence to go to the moon, extinguish fires or look after an injured elephant. Educators utilise play to transform tedious learning into enjoyable experiences. Physical games help replenish energy spent during mental activities, waking up bodies that have kept still for too long. Running and wild jumping can also help release excess energy, leading to a calmer state. More generally, various forms of play allow us to explore, experience and discover the capabilities of our bodies and minds. We can concoct secret plots during a board game, become monsters during role play, live in a castle underneath the kitchen table, or make daring leaps over lava cracks while walking on the pavement.

A deeper look

Play has been analysed across different fields and classified into various categories by many thinkers. While these perspectives are valid, they often limit play to a pleasurable and functional activity, primarily associated with childhood, thereby overlooking its profound significance.

Johan Huizinga’s view on play

In his book Homo Ludens published in 1938, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga argues that
play predates culture, linking it to humanity rather than society. He examined the nature of play across creative acts in adulthood, such as poetry, imagination, public debates and arts. After studying various academic views on play, I have found that his extended reflections remain the richest way of understanding play. I have tried to describe the different characteristics that define play, according to Huizinga, below.

Play is free and unrestricted. It cannot be forced or imposed but must be willingly embraced, existing for its own sake. There is a paradox between the fragility of a game, which can only be chosen, and the immense power play holds when creativity flourishes freely.

Children engage in play seriously and passionately. When they’re caught up in their game, it is not worth telling them that losing doesn’t matter or that pausing is fine because, in that moment, this is not their reality. Play isn’t light entertainment – much can be at stake. Unlike what we might initially think, play can be serious and profound.

Real play is detached from any material interest, with no profit to be gained or generated from it. Play is not useful, and makes no money: gambling is excluded, for example. While devices and material resources can enhance play (preferably open-ended ones for children), ultimately, nothing material is essential. Words, a stick or a stone can be sufficient. A shared mindset or a verbal or physical rule is enough to initiate play. This is where I find its beauty.

Implicit or not, rules hold play and gather the temporary circle of players, who are free
to shape and reshape them. Creativity and inventiveness are at stake here. Fulfilling play might involve making the rules one’s own instead of following a pattern or a known frame. The enjoyment we can find in playing a board game can be intensified when we modify its rules and take ownership of them.

Play can be an intangible yet genuine space of shared experience. When play is over, a bond and a feeling of complicity will remain within the circle of players. It deepens relationships.

Each situation of play is particular: it has its own time, space and order. Players merge and are fully engaged in a state of tension and balance. We can sometimes feel the adrenaline push in the body while playing intensely.

This precise understanding of play helped me see what play truly is and what it is not.

When I facilitate a workshop, I witness professional adults shed their managed selves as they write a poem or immerse themselves in the communal weaving of an urban installation. At the end of a session, participants express regret that the fun is over. How might they protect and cultivate play in their everyday lives?

Delving even deeper: a philosopher’s view on play

Play possesses a sacred and holistic nature that philosophers can help us understand. In the 17th century, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal considered play an existential trait. Conscious that our lives will end, Pascal judged that we use play to deceive our minds and temporarily forget our fate. He believed play to be the sole possession of humanity. 

One century later, Friedrich Schiller famously remarked, “Man only plays when he is in the fullest sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays.” The sense of fulfilment, harmony and
deep pleasure we can feel when we play is what makes it so precious.

My personal learning around play

My enquiries have led me to understand the sacred value of play. Ultimately, I have come to realise that I have kept myself busy thinking about play, placing it on a pedestal, while still longing to invite it more into my everyday life. A scientific study has shown that the part of the brain engaged with play is not the cerebral cortex, responsible for memory, thinking, learning and reasoning (Jaak Panksepp, an Estonian-American neuroscientist and psychobiologist, conducted a study on that subject with rats). In other words, there is no need to think to play, even though thinking might help to refine it.

Thinking about play for such a long time made me recognise that I was actually intimidated, scared even, to delve into it, due to my personal story. I then oriented myself towards another question: how can we nurture and engage in more play in adulthood?

The unlearning of adulthood

For young children, play is a second native language, impossible to suppress. This innate power of play is fascinating. However, education and societal norms can inhibit play by imposing constraints or evoking embarrassment or shame. The learned voice that judges which behaviours are inappropriate, ridiculous, useless or silly, quickly becomes so ingrained in our minds that it becomes part of us and we don’t even notice it.

True play occurs when we are free from judgement. When fully engaged in play, our common moral framework becomes temporarily irrelevant. As adults, we may need to consciously free ourselves from the cultural and social conditioning that distances us from our natural ability to get into a playful state. We can thank our rational left brain for a moment and ask it to make room for our creative right one.

Embracing that child state might help us to play, not worrying about doing something superfluous or illogical. For this, we might have to unlearn some rules.

Acknowledge and nurture play

Making space for play in our lives involves two movements that nourish each other. Starting by bringing the value of play to our consciousness, we can acknowledge and celebrate its power and beauty, the pleasure, fulfilment and sense of liveliness it can bring to life. We can then support the cultivation of playful moments, taking the time to feel and stop thinking, being mindful and listening to the little voices of unusual and maybe shy desires in our heads and giving them space.

Two years ago, a friend invited me to a free dance session. Knowing how important play is for me helped me get over the initial discomfort, and I loved it. Since then, I never miss opportunities to meet with my body, have fun and be creative.

Invitation to cultivate play

Our daily life provides endless prompts for play, and once we start to notice and respond to them, it becomes increasingly easy to spontaneously and fully embrace playfulness.

Here is an invitation to grasp the next opportunity to play, be it modest or eccentric, and to be confident that pleasure and vitality will make any short-lived embarrassment well worth it.

I have started small. I sometimes change the words of a famous song according to what is happening in the here and now, or I do a quick dance, jump in or over a puddle, bake biscuits that make you invisible, finish a yoga session with a roly-poly, or walk backwards in the street to fight against time flying by. Little manageable steps are a safe way to go.

Play is not just a pastime or a frivolous activity. It is a fundamental aspect of human nature, crucial for development, creativity and social connection. By embracing playfulness and nurturing it in our lives, we can tap into a wellspring of joy, spontaneity and vitality that enriches our existence and strengthens our bonds with others. 

 

Article published in Juno Magazine . Issue 92 . Autumn 2024