The forgotten art of Play

I wonder sometimes how it is that children, given the freedom, have the ability to create a game out of almost anything? It is certainly a lost art to adults. When we approach a task, we set forth with completing it from beginning to end, maintaining a motivation that is based upon what the task will achieve. For the child, it is the task itself that creates a sort of treasure. Children are trying to create themselves;  their task is to become. It gives them great enjoyment to do so. This is play. Granted, it makes some sense that adults would be sitting around talking about play as though it were the most serious activity; adults tend to be rather serious at times. For the child, play, is just fun, not development. And it is an amazing blessing that in the midst of that fun, somewhat unconsciously, they are problem solving, building executive function skills, and often challenging their physical coordination to better control their body. But this begs the question: can adults play?

You think this is a game?

There are a lot of things that I enjoy doing. I love taking walks in the woods. Granted, I live in New York city, so I mostly imagine that I'm in the woods when I am in the park. I like to write, as you probably already know. Though my relationship with writing is tumultuous. And lately, I've been practicing a lot of chess. I've lost over 60 games since the shelter-in-place has begun. Now with each of these activities, I experience momentary happiness. While performing the activities, I think about the benefits of the activity. Taking a walk will calm me down and keep me in shape. Writing this article will allow me the opportunity to exercise the various talents I've been given. Losing at chess will increase my humility...and perhaps I'll get better. Now is this play? Not in the same way as the child. But perhaps that's okay. I do believe that adults, like children, can become so engrossed in an activity, that the enjoyment is in the doing and completing for its own sake. The consciousness of adults may prevent that "flow" state from time to time, but it is certainly not impossible. In general, I play is certainly a discipline where old fogies like myself ought to sit at the feat of children and learn.  For while it is not synonymous with enjoyment, play does not exist where one does not pursue the activity primarily for the sake of fun.

And when was the last time you had fun?