The Crucial Importance of Play

Here are Some Thoughts…Reflecting on PLAY as an essential quality for our civilization's future as suggested by Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind and my attendance at the annual conference of TASP – The Association for the Study of Play, http://www.tasplay.org/about.html at Georgia State University, in March 10-13, 2010

Play can grow talents and intelligences

Play and character development

Spirited Play and playful spirit

The essential nature of play in developing empathy, purpose, an indispensable part of being human

Play as a means of glimpsing the best in humanity and the divine

Research seminal thinkers that D. Pink introduces such as The National Institute for Play, Dr. Stuart Brown, Director

As an intelligent social animal, play is intelligible to all humans. We naturally “get it.” It transcends all cultures.

Spontaneously play is done for its own sake and produces pleasure and joy. There is choice if the individual is safe and not in want, play naturally unfolds.

PLAY is “Guilt-free purposelessness”

The science of play seen in studies of play in behavioral studies of animals and humans

By all measures we can observe the universality of play

TASP – The Association for the Study of Play as a source of the most prescient contemporary researchers in the field of play and human development

Play is not trivial, for instance follow the trail from the very beginnings of life in the interactions of parent and child, the joyful experiences for both child and parent that now can be witnessed through the medium of medical imagery.

Animals and humans who are deprived of play are rigid and lack adaptability. They do not seek out novelty, they are trapped in the past, the previously experienced.

Our capacity to play has been evolutionarily necessary. It has been invaluable in our evolution as a species.

The practice for life that play enables…it is the borderland between our inside and the outside world. It is the interface between a playful view of the world and the realities of a world full of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Consider Competition and Contact in play such as: A natural emergence of testing one’s skills in competition.

Mark Beckoff, author and keynote speaker at TASP writes eloquently of play behavior in animals, particularly wolves.

An amazing Atlanta resource is the researcher, Olga Jarrett, PhD, Professor of Early Childhood Education at Georgia State University.

Play awakens something in the adult, which is relearning the languages that we forgot or vaguely remember from our childhood. And we see in the writings of Daniel Pink that this is pretty crucial stuff for our future success.

Play and the discovery of our natural talents: the role that this stage of trial-and-error experimentation, a willingness to chance. It represents a resonance of openness to life. Consider Play across the lifespan. Play’s importance cannot be underestimated…it is in synch with these times.

Risk-taking in play is exploring the edges of the dangerous, with some but not excessive risk. It is absolutely necessary, to allow the spontaneity in taking the actual risks. Play teaches the young what they can and cannot do. Without play, we can deprive youth of valuable lessons. It is reasonable to have challenging playgrounds, to deal with the tensions of exploring limits. We too often err on the side of caution: keeping their bodies safe but endangering their souls.

If those talents are given free reign, then empowerment and freedom, imaginative self-discovery may take place. This is nature’s way of saying “this is who you are and what you are.” Look back at what gave you joy as a child. (see my earlier posts on Revisiting Childhood in artists’ lives) Look at the successful lives of people who play. The terrifying but joyful risk-taking…if you can’t play at it, you can’t invest your entire self in it. Play can reinvigorate and renew your creativity. Videogames do give opportunities for imaginative thought and practicing certain life skills, as Pink observes.

Brain-imaging techniques demonstrate that areas crucial to learning get lit up by movement, it accelerates learning. Looking at the developing brain as the wealth of information in this field unfolds.

What role does ART play? Is it play as an integral component of the biological design of humans, art facilitates an ability to retain playful behavior throughout a lifetime.

Be resolved to play more--recovering this as a healthy part of our childhood inheritance. Healing the child within: start with rhythm and movement. They fill an empty heart with a sense of stepping outside of the urgency of time. Being in the moment.

Be about kindling and “following your bliss,” as Joseph Campbell suggested. Reach into visual and emotional images that becomes an internal show. Play is imbedded into you since you had childhood experiences with play. Consider DANCE--move it, shake it, and watch the smile grow. Watch the interview of Dr. Stewart Brown on the PBS “Speaking of Faith” blog.

Although these thoughts are not in the form of a cohesive essay, I believe they represent my pondering play and some of the fields I have been exploring since reading Daniel Pink and his writing about play as an essential sense to develop for success in the future.