I worry that my regular readers think I never work and only holiday because right now I’m writing this whilst relaxing on a sandy beach on the lovely Isle of Wight. Honestly, I do work, and in my opinion, really quite hard. I’m an engraver – a laser engraver to be precise, and I’ll say a little more about my WORK later.
This article though is about PLAY which some might say is the polar opposite to WORK. I’ll shock you now and say these two words plus SLEEP are the three most important words in our privileged lives. WORK, PLAY, SLEEP repeat as a t-shirt slogan might say. Think about it, these 3 things occupy the most time in all our lives. Something so important must be considered deeply. So together we are going to explore the concept of PLAY and why adults lose this important ability as they grow older.
And I’m in a perfect position to tell you about PLAY, sitting in my deck chair on the beach. It’s a family holiday and I’m here with my two grandkids aged 4 and 2 years old. Watching them PLAY on the beach. I WORK as an engraver, I PLAY Racketlon and I’m a grandparent old enough to have a lifetime of experience but young enough to remember bits of my own fading childhood. I’m the right person to explain why children PLAY and adults don’t. And as I’m writing this, it’s helping reveal a faint glow on that age-old question about the Meaning of Life. Rather dramatic, I know, but if you can get what I’m about to say, you will live a happier more fulfilled life. Big claims – so here we go…
First, though I’d like to agree on some definitions with you. My dictionary states PLAY as “what children do to amuse themselves”. To me, that is such a narrow, inaccurate definition. I’m homing in on “children” and “amuse”. And the dictionary definition of “amuse”? Well, my book defines this as “to cause to laugh or smile”. Put these together and we get:-
PLAY: “What children do to make themselves laugh or smile”
In my humble opinion, this is quite wrong, even misleading, and I’m going to explain why.
I PLAY Racketlon, and I’m not a child. The dictionary definition is wrong! My grandchildren are sitting on the beach shoveling sand into buckets. They aren’t laughing or smiling but all of us would say they are playing on the beach. How can the dictionary definition be so completely wrong!?
How can the word PLAY, which I’m claiming to be one of the most important words, along with WORK and SLEEP, be so misunderstood?
In temporary defence of the dictionary, the school playground environment is the classic PLAY scenario. Picture a gang of primary school children running in haphazard directions, shrieking with laughter and pleasure, chasing one another. This playground sound has to be one of the world’s greatest sounds, perhaps just above the sound of a new tube of tennis balls being opened, or the squeak of rubber soles on a sports hall floor accompanied by the percussion of rackets on feathered shuttles. Children playing in a school playground is such a classic example of PLAY and it is definitely an activity that adults don’t do. Just for fun, take a minute to visualise adults playing like this. It would be so much fun! Grown men chasing men. Grown women chasing men. And all other combinations of whatever chasing whatever ( – sorry I’m not very good at the new combinations of label name thingies). What a sight and sound that would be! If only we could make it fun in the way that kids do [ I actually can think of a few ways we could do this but they all involve illegal substances or acts].
But, like I said, the playground scene is a classic one-off scenario. Children PLAY in many other ways that I’ll remind you old adults of. Digging sand, collecting pebbles in a bucket, building legos, arranging toys in a line, dressing dolls, and completing a jigsaw. There are so many activities and they are so diverse. Very few are accompanied by smiling or laughing, more usually by silent intense concentration. Yet every one of us adult observers would classify them as a child at PLAY. So how can a dictionary definition cover all these diverse possibilities?
Before I tell you just scoot back to my diverse examples of children’s PLAY. Now substitute the child for an adult and see what we get…
Digging sand or earth. Shoveling stones into a bucket or wheelbarrow. Building a brick wall. Dressing a baby. Arranging and rearranging stuff. Figuring out a problem. When an adult does the same activity as what the kids do, PLAY becomes WORK. (Actually it’s the other way round. Children mimic adults and what they most often see is adults working. Toys like Lego have been developed to cause fewer injuries than masonry bricks and timbers).
This observation of children playing quietly and contentedly can help us develop a better definition of PLAY: because they can! But it’s not a great definition. Children PLAY digging in the sand because they can. They can’t shovel 5 tonnes of sand from the driveway to the back garden. And if they could, it would be called WORK not PLAY. Toddlers haven’t the skill set to dress a real baby safely so that is for the parent to do – it’s the WORK of a parent.
After watching my grandchildren PLAY my own definition of PLAY has become:
PLAY: “to consume oneself in any activity so that the past and the future are oblivious and only the present exists”
I hope you don’t think I’m stealing from other words. For those of you, like me who contemplate “the meaning of life” you will probably have come across the word “autotelic”. My dictionary defines autotelic as an activity that has no end or purpose in itself.
My PLAY definition is close to autotelic but it’s not quite the same. My understanding of FLOW is closer to PLAY. PLAY and FLOW often have an outcome or pre-planned outcome (such as enjoyment or creation of something or satisfactory completion of an activity). Whereas, autotelic is more about the experience of itself. The subtle differences of these 3 terms are actually irrelevant here. The key point is losing yourself in the present, leaving the past behind, and not anticipating the future. Read that again. It’s the whole point of what I’m writing. Children are good at doing this. They can PLAY with say, a toothpick. They can lose themselves at PLAY with a toothpick. Ask an adult to sit still for 1 minute with only a toothpick and after a few seconds I guarantee their mind will be wandering about all the jobs they’ve got to do, and this toothpick task is so pointless; and what did I have for lunch that’s now stuck in my teeth? An adult finds it very difficult to stay in the present. That’s why nowadays TV and smartphones are popular activities. They help people fleetingly travel to an artificial present and cast the worries of the past and future momentarily aside.
But wait, there are several beneficial takeaways we can extract from all of this.
1. Adults can PLAY (according to my definition, not the dictionary’s)
2. Adults do PLAY (ditto)
3. It’s good to live in the present (actually it’s the only place to live so that’s what you have to do)
4. It’s ok to watch TV and briefly forget the past and ignore the future (except there’s so much crap on TV it might drive you insane)
5. It’s OK to chase other adults around (but make sure it’s the right kind of shrieking; don’t misinterpret a scream for a shriek – probably better to get their consent first)
Ignore the dictionary – Adults can PLAY. It’s not just for kids. Find something to do where you can lose yourself. It could be knitting, gardening, drawing, or playing Racketlon. You know I choose Racketlon, but I suppose I could include writing. When I’m writing it’s difficult (read impossible) to do if I’m worrying about something I’ve got to get up and do. And I suppose that’s why I write on holiday. I can do as I please in the moment and not worry about my day-to-day schedule as I do when I’m at home.
Some people enjoy eating as an autotelic, in the moment, experience rather than as an essential activity (let’s face it, everyone reading this could not eat for 24 hours and be better off for it). But how many times have you finished a sandwich and then realised you never tasted it? That’s because you weren’t living and eating in the present but preoccupied with the past or the future. What a waste of taste of a sandwich.
Adults do PLAY. Some people PLAY chess. Some people PLAY Racketlon. Racketlon forces you to be in the present. It’s hard to time a smash when you’re thinking about item 4 on the agenda of your next Management Meeting. Playing Sports is classic escapism from the routine struggles of Life. Fortunately, it has also got a of health benefits too. Unfortunately, if I’m honest with you, it’s probably a more accurate description to tell you that I WORK Racketlon (perhaps another t-shirt slogan there). My ‘in the present’ PLAY is all too often disrupted by contemplating past miss-hits and inappropriate thoughts of “what if I serve this out?” Those of you who know my competitive behaviour won’t believe me when I say I would prefer to lose and experience true FLOW than win without experiencing FLOW. It’s such a positive feeling that stays with you. More so than the few wins I’ve had, which are satisfying, I’m not going to lie, but nowhere near as fulfilling as you might expect or hope for.
Earlier I confessed that I WORK Racketlon. On the other hand, I know I’m fortunate that I can PLAY engraving. What I mean by that is I do still enjoy my job and from time to time I can get so engrossed in what I’m doing with my lasers that I can be completely oblivious to the phone ringing or someone speaking. It could be considered rude I suppose, but I’ll justify it by claiming I’m playing. No, that’s not going to work either. Concentrating? Focussed? Playing? I hope by now you’re agreeing they are all the same in this discussion. It’s about losing yourself in the present.
Finally, let’s return one more time to the dictionary definitions of PLAY. An alternative that I’ve ignored until now is
PLAY: a dramatic or theatrical performance
When you consider professional actors on a stage perhaps ironically we would say they are at WORK. When I watch our elite Racketlon players I see the court as their stage. They own it. They are our best dramatic performers able to create unscripted, amazing, and unbelievable performances under extreme duress and pressure. We’re so priviledged to see them at WORK.
And now, as I remember watching our elite Racketlon Players at the past World Championships, my thoughts drift to the upcoming future World Championships in August in Rotterdam. As I struggle to stay in the present, my writing flow is waning; the imaginary pop of a tennis ball can has been replaced by the real pop of a beer can…Time to wrap it up.
At the upcoming World Championship, the courts of Centrum Victoria, Rotterdam will be our World Stage. Will I, as an adult reclaim my ability to truly PLAY? Will my Racketlon play be free and easy for maximum enjoyment and maximum fulfillment? Or will I WORK my Racketlon and put on a PERFORMANCE worthy of a dramatic PLAY?
See you on the court!
Simon
