Reclaiming play in a world on fire

What do to when the world is too serious for its own good

Photo by Rene Bernal on Unsplash

It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment when play stopped being a regular part of my life.

I had a very rich play life as a kid. I created and inhabited whole worlds, both in solitude and with a few special friends who shared my love of making things and telling stories. And sometimes with my dog.

But these days, play feels pretty damn far away.

The world is a scary place right now. And it’s exhausting.

Though I make it a point to appreciate the pockets of joy and wonder that I find in each and every day, life can still feel like a grind. Sometimes I can’t remember what day it is without looking at the calendar. We’re not talking Groundhog Day territory, but close.

I don’t like to complain (I have so much to be grateful for), but … I’m a little bit angry that play has become a luxury that most of us cannot easily afford on a regular basis.

There’s always so much to do and so much to worry about. Our time and energy are completely depleted by navigating today and attempting to plan for a wildly uncertain tomorrow. We’ve got nothing left to give.

You know the drill: get up, hustle, fall into bed, and do it all again the next day … and the day after that, and after that, and after that.

And then there’s the fact that the world is quite literally on fire and drowning at the same time. On bad days, just walking out your door feels like a death-defying act of derring-do. On good days, the panic subsides into a low-level hum of existential dread brought on by news headlines shouting about global warming, mass extinctions, the rise of autocracy and oligarchs, the next pandemic, the latest school shooting, the demise of our public institutions, and the ever-rising levels of inequity and hatred … just to name a few of the many concerns that circle our sense of wellbeing like a pack of slavering hyenas waiting for an opening to attack. People are hurting. We are hurting.

Play? Who has time for play? Life is serious business.

Yes, life is serious, but it’s also fucking short. Are we just supposed to be sad and angry and scared all the time? How does that change anything for the better? How does that help you create a life worth living?

I know, I know — it’s almost impossible to justify any activity that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line. We have been programmed for productivity. So we work hard in the hopes that we will eventually earn the right to play hard. The cruel trick is that “playing hard “ usually has next to nothing to do with actual play and everything to do with forking over a lot of cash to travel somewhere, buy things we don’t need, or otherwise feed the hungry, hungry maw of capitalism. And then the process starts all over again.

Life has to be more than an endless cycle of accumulation and consumption.

It has to be.

Way back in my first Saturday Side Quest post, I shared this:

In her memoir, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying — A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing, Australian author and songwriter Bronnie Ware writes about what she learned during her time as a palliative caregiver. A review published by the National Library of Medicine includes — spoiler alert — a summary of the biggest regrets people facing their mortality shared with Ware:

1. “I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

2. “I wish I hadn't worked so hard.”

3. “I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.”

4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

5. “I wish I had let myself be happier”

Are you surprised?

I’m not.

You know what can help you live a life true to yourself, avoid working too hard, express yourself, make friends, and be happier? You guessed it: Play.

Play is a doorway to your truest self — to who you were as a kid. It’s like the imaginary friend who embodies the core of your identity — your most precious dreams and beliefs. Even when you are all grown up and spending way too much time being important and serious, that piece of you still exists. It’s still in there. But sometimes you neglect it because acknowledging it forces you to acknowledge its loss. And sometimes you bury it deep in an attempt to protect it from the Real World.

But now is the time to reclaim play. We need it more than ever.

Play is about creating and engaging with (rather than consuming) the world around us. It’s about collaborating and transforming, about being in conversation with the world, our creative spirit, and — ultimately — each other. Even solitary play creates connection.

Play engages our curiosity and allows us to reimagine the world and our place in it. Play subverts our default way of seeing things and in doing so illuminates opportunities and solutions that might otherwise have remained invisible to us.

Play does not conform. It does not bow to the powers that be. Play makes its own rules, and in doing so opens up a world of new possibilities and gives us a sense of hope. It is the spark that ignites a universe of ideas and stories that in turn become the foundation of a new reality.

We are not here to grind through day after day to feed a machine whose ravenous hunger will never, ever be satisfied. We are here to create, to dream, and to explore — we are here to play. That is our superpower. Let’s put it to good use.