“Many animals learn by playing.”, my professor said, as she laid things out on the floor.
I nodded. I knew it. I have watched children play, I remember playing for many pleasurable hours myself. It is why I can be entranced watching squirrels play. I have always appreciated imaginative play.
What I did not realize is that I have forgotten how to do so myself.
I watched with a little awe and some glee as our professor set out things for free play. There were sticks, magnetic stickers, crochet scarves, yarn, finger puppets, lego blocks, kidney beans. Piles of things to play with, and I suddenly felt a sense of overwhelm. You see? I don’t remember when I played without an expected outcome. Years? Decades?
Didn’t I have to make something?
What do you mean – I can just do something that I like?
It was then that the activity really hit me. Unstructured play is a luxury – even for the children. When told to do anything, we do not know how to do that.
Play morphs with age too
Thinking back, even play has morphed with time and age. Rules came into play – team games, board games, level-based games: they all tried to make their way into your life. But playing just so we could? The more adult we became, the less we did that. Even though, we tried our best to incorporate games into our lives, the nature of the games morphed. There were competitive games, skill-based games, team-based games. But just playing with the materials available to us?
How long since you just took some play-doh and squished it? Without making a fish or a heart out of it?
At the end of the 20 minute session, I realized that I was still quite confused. Did I play correctly? Our training to play it right meant we have forgotten what it is to play.
Did I feel happy? I genuinely do not know.
Did I feel satisfied? I am not sure.
Did I have a good time? Maybe – I meandered, but I was assured that was the right thing.
I came home, expecting to regale the husband and children and ask if they are willing to entertain free play. The son had gone for his running practice, the husband had gone for tennis, and came home miffed about a game they should have won but didn’t. And I stood there, running awfully late behind my dinner making schedule to be chatting about playing.
Is Play the Basis of Culture?
I remember writing about the recess being the basis of culture in an article over a decade ago. I relished that thought now. Why do we not have scheduled recesses in offices and work spots? A time when everybody is expected to be doing nothing?
I spent the next hour and a half cooking, cleaning, scrubbing and taking out the trash, with no energy left to think of playing. But I thought to myself. How wonderful it would be if household robots enabled us to play again. Just for the sake of it.
Wishful thinking I know. But I did know that of all the laments of adulthood, the fact that we no longer skip while walking, prance while doing the laundry, or twirl while making toast, or have free play sessions with our pals is my biggest lament.
As I sank into bed, exhausted by my day, I reflected on the unstructured play session: Did I enjoy it? I still do not know. But I remember golden shining moments like little fireflies in a jar of moments when we played as children. Joyously, without agenda, and without expectations.
It is a happy talent to know how to play.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
How do we relearn that art, and embrace it in our lives again?
