Serious Play

Hi There,

The first month of the year feels like a time to take stock and get serious about things. This year, I say try the opposite.

In this issue of The Dialogue, I’m talking about the importance of play—getting out of our heady to-do lists and into the tangible experiences of our lives.

Cheers,

JC

Then days go by and it’s dark at 5pm and cold in many parts of the world. There’s no upcoming break to look forward to, just the dutiful new schedule we’ve set and the dread we feel striving to make this our “best year ever.”

But if a year is a just a collection of days you’re dreading, how could this possibly be your best year?

Now, don’t get me wrong—I am all for setting goals and building systems that support them. I’m just equally for making time in your days and weeks for experiences that make being alive exciting. And that means time for play.

Play is essential to our creativity and well-being.

It gets a bad rep in a culture that values busyness. Play seems like the opposite of being productive. It seems purposeless. But really, play is productivity’s secret weapon. Consider how much you get done right before you go on vacation. Or all the chores you can manage to wrap up at the end of a day if you’ve got plans to meet friends. Play is a motivator. And without play, there’s no reprieve to the myriad of tasks to be done.

Take Your Play Seriously

Before any of us entered formal schooling, we all learned about the world around us through play. As children, we played at being adults, athletes, artists, adventurers. We learned to use our bodies, to see, hear, react through unstructured play. We took to exploring the earth around us. But at some point, we became adults with more responsibilities than free time and play no longer factored into our organized learning. Play now seems frivolous.

But play isn’t an abandon of reason—it’s a necessary part of reaching our potential. Play helps us out of ruts and introduces new ways to solve old problems. Without it, we stagnate. That’s why you can’t afford to leave your playtime to chance. You need to schedule it, prioritize it, and embrace it.

Carving out space for novelty and engagement is a necessity, not a luxury—especially for artists. It helps any administrative task feel like it’s in service of something other than a to-do list.

Play is about experiences. And experiences are what we draw on in creative work. Feeling like you haven’t spent time lately in play? Schedule a day, an hour, even just a ten-minute play-break to nurture your sense of play.

To-Experience List (Ta-ta, To-Do)

We all have a bucket list; an aspirational collection of things we hope to one day experience. But what if you had a list of smaller, easy-to-jump-into joy-bringers? And how would your state of mind change if each month, or even each week you made a point to touch on one of them? By intentionally setting out to make space for novelty? Even just trying a different type of food once a week is a good place to start.

“One way to think about play is an action you do that brings you a significant amount of joy without offering a specific result.”—Jeff Harry, positive play coach [from the New York Times]

Yes, send the follow-up email you need to send and check the other items off your list that will move you forward in your career… but also go explore a part of town you never spend time in. Work out to keep your heart healthy. Try a new way of moving your body to feed your creativity.

There’s a purpose to purposeless pursuits: they keep our curiosity alive. Too much time draining the well without refilling it will lead to burnout. Give yourself permission to get busy playing.

Here are some of my favorite takeaways from his book Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (emphasis my own).

• Your creativity also needs to be protected, not only from outside critics, but also from your own internal critic. Allow yourself to be abundant in your creativity, at first not making judgments about what you think, feel, or do. Simply play with your ideas, with how you do things. When you are stuck, try imagining fifty “impossible” solutions and then let yourself throw out forty-five.
• Most often, new discoveries and new learning come when one is open to serendipity, when one welcomes novelties and anomalies, and then tries to incorporate those outlying results into the broader field of knowledge. As Isaac Asimov said, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny . . .’ ”
• anyone goes without play for too long, grinding out the work that is expected of them, they will at some point look at their lives and ask (usually silently and privately), “Is this all there is? Is this what I can expect for the rest of my life?”
• Play, by its very nature, is a little anarchic. It is about stepping outside of normal life and breaking normal patterns. It is about bending rules of thought, action, and behavior.
• In large part, play is our culture, in the form of music, drama, novels, dances, celebrations, and festivals. Play shows us our common humanity. It shows us how we can be free within the societal structures that allow us to live with others. It is the genesis of innovation and allows us to deal with an ever-changing world.