In search of a lost skill
"I played with an idea, and grew willful; tossed it into the air; transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent with fancy, and winged it with paradox."
Oscar Wilde
"The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play."Arnold Toynbee
"This is the real secret of life is to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play."Alan Watts
Are you ready to play?Right now, this instant?
Are you ready to mix things up and embrace new sensations, movements and ideas?
Are you grinding away on a project or are you leaping from one challenge to the next, rearranging the elements in new and exciting combinations?
It all comes down to a simple question: Are you in a playful state of mind and body? If so, what led you to be here? If not, why? And how can you get back in?
no trivial matter
If these questions seem trivial, that means that you haven’t been playing enough; you have yet to realize how important play is in creating a functional life. The deeper we get into play, the more we understand how transformative it really is. This is a matter of supreme importance.
As adults, many of us have forgotten that state of consciousness, a psychophysical disposition towards playful behavior. This state is difficult to define, but it clearly exists and we fall into it and out of it throughout the course of each day, and over the course of our lives.
Play is a human universal. It is common to every culture and is widespread in the animal world. It facilitates learning, development and functional behavior. In fact, the correlation between play and learning is tight. Play occurs at precisely the same time in the lifespan when neural growth is at its peak.
Our most successful artists, athletes and creators are those who have cracked the code of play. They know how to create conditions for nurturing the play instinct and how to get back in when they fall out of play. If we can learn to recognize this state and recognize the elements that lead us in or out, we just might be able to enter it at will and enjoy its benefits.
play amnesia, remembering play
Unfortunately, many of us suffer from a kind of retrograde play amnesia as we grow older; we not only forget the actual events of our youth but even more importantly, we forget the feeling that led us to play in the first place.
As children, our play instinct was a powerful, almost unstoppable force; it was a central organizing theme for our existence. The whole point of being alive was to play; everything else was a mere distraction. Instinctively, we knew that play was vital to survival, physicality and success. The drive to play eclipsed nearly every other consideration. We played to live and lived to play. But as we entered adulthood, we became more inhibited and we spent less time in the play state.
This inhibition came from several directions. Obviously, the demands of social life pushed us towards practicality, planning and delayed gratification. But some of the inhibition came from within our own brains, specifically from the prefrontal cortex.
This chunk of brain tissue has several functions, including impulse control and inhibition of the emotionally rich limbic system. In the young human, development of the prefrontal cortex lags behind the rest of the brain and doesn’t fully mature until the early 20’s. That’s why young people tend to be more emotionally expressive and creative. When the prefrontal cortex finally comes on line, young adults become more adept at dampening emotional states including fear, anger, sadness and of course, creative play.
This is a good news-bad news event. On one hand, it gives us the emotional control to function in a complex social world and to delay gratification. We find that, by inhibiting our emotional lives, we can accomplish great things. We can get good jobs, write books, earn advanced degrees and plan for the future. And in fact, society rewards us handsomely for our acts of emotional inhibition. We are well paid for the ability to sit still for long periods, work deeply with detail and delay our personal needs.
Herein lies the trap: Inhibition works. It pays off, especially in this modern world. And so we do more of it. Eventually the practice becomes habitual– an adult strategy for success in the modern world. Even when we are not required to do so, we continue to exercise prefrontal authority over limbic emotion. And in the process, we lose touch with our creativity and our sense of play. In extreme cases, play disappears entirely from our personalities and we become dull, joyless drones.
So, we need remedial education. We need to remember what play feels like. And most importantly, we need strategies for getting back in when we fall out.
the nature of the play state
So let’s refresh our memory. Maybe it’s been awhile and you can’t quite remember what the play state feels like. So try to imagine your last genuinely playful experience. You may have to go back years, even decades, but do it. Close your eyes. Think about the entire experience: the environment, the social setting, the time of day, your clothing, the way your body felt, your sense of time and self.
It’s different for everyone, of course, but there seem to be some common elements that hold true. When we’re in the play state, we’re
relaxed but energized
curious, experimental, creative
engaged, focused, absorbed
present-oriented, outside of time
lacking in self-awareness
interested in the experience for its own sake
awash in the sense of possibility, options, opportunityflow
This thing we’re calling the “play state” shares a good many characteristics with “flow,” as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his landmark book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
Flow is the mental state in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing. It’s characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
Csikszentmihalyi description of flow sounds very similar to our play state. His list includes:concentrating and focusing.
a loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
distorted sense of time
balance between ability level and challenge
a sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
a sense that the activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
a sense of absorption, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself.The parallels between flow and the play state are striking; the two states seem largely interchangeable. If you’re really playing, you’re in flow. If you’re in flow, you’re probably playing.
just what we’ve been looking for
What we see here is an ideal condition for living. When we’re in flow or play, mind-body integration is at its highest. In fact, there is undoubtedly a physiologic reality to both flow and the play state. If we looked close enough, we’d see a balance in the autonomic nervous system of the flow-state player.
To be specific, we’d see optimal levels of activity in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. In other words, we’d be right in the middle between “fight or fight” and “feed and breed.” We’d be energized, but relaxed; alert but calm. Stress hormones would be circulating at low levels, but would be on tap for quick response.
This is precisely what we need for optimal athletic performance, learning, creativity and personal relations. Far from being trivial, play may in fact be the most important thing that we can do in any domain of life.
a skill, an aptitude, an intelligence
When we think about the ebb and flow of the play state and our desire to enter it, we begin to realize that there’s an aptitude here, a kind of intelligence. With practice, we should be able to learn how to recognize the play state and position ourselves to remain playful. Let’s call this our playskill.
The skill consists of several elements:
Naturally, the whole thing starts with awareness and recognition. How am I doing? Am I in the play state or have I fallen out? What is the trajectory of my life, both short and long term? Am I heading towards play or away from it?
Second, we also need some knowledge of the forces and conditions that facilitate or inhibit play. Finding the sweet spot of play is not a matter of random groping. Rather, it is a matter of intentionally positioning ourselves to take advantage of play-friendly forces and influencers.
Finally, playskill implies the ability to coax oneself out of a non-play state, back into play. It suggests a certain resilience and the ability to rebound after hardship, distraction or calamity.
meet the play killers
An essential component of playskill is the ability to recognize the anti-play forces that inhibit or extinguish our playful drive. If we can see these things coming, we can craft some creative counter measures.
physical
Many of the play killers are physical. If we feel fatigue or are suffering pain, injury or illness, our play drive will suffer. If environmental reality threatens us with fire, flood or starvation, play becomes less likely. This is a basic survival response that is common to all animals, human and non-human.
stress
Stress is a notorious play killer, especially when it comes in the form of fear, social dysfunction or poverty. Even the perception of poverty or low social standing is enough to derail our playful ways. And of course, chronic stress tends to produce depression and thus weaken our play impulse.
culture
Obviously, cultural influences are huge. If your culture values and rewards chronic labor, your play impulse will be stifled. If your culture trivializes play, you will abandon it. Social ridicule looms large here too, especially during the critical high school years. When everyone strives to appear mature and grown-up, play is the first thing to go.
social isolation
Social isolation is a powerful play killer, in both human and non-human animals. In fact, researchers who study play behavior use isolation intentionally to produce play deprivation. When young rats are isolated during their critical period of development, they stop playing and suffer psychosocial consequences later in adulthood.
anti-role models
Naturally, role modeling and mimicry are vital. If you live and work with non-playful people, your play impulse will be stifled. Grim, serious people are inhibitory and deadening.
education
Sadly, we find powerfully toxic play killers throughout our educational systems. Authoritarian curriculums present us with fixed right answers and ultimate solutions; dead knowledge. When material is presented as complete and finished, students are not inclined to play with it. What’s the point?
fundamentalism
Similarly, entrenched belief systems, especially fundamentalism, tend to drive out play. Rigid philosophies allow no subtlety or rearrangement. Fresh interpretations are unwelcome, so why play?
language
Boring language is a notorious play killer. Droning presentations and monologues have killed untold billions of play impulses. PowerPoint presentations are famous for killing initiative, motivation, curiosity and wakeful consciousness.
habits
Habit is a powerful play killer. Routine is seductive and self-reinforcing. It feels comfortable and safe. The more we dwell in our habitual behaviors, the less likely we are to expose ourselves to the ambiguity of play.
bad toys and tools
Poorly designed toys and tools also inhibit our creative impulses. They break our concentration or drive our bodies into awkward positions. They force us to step back from the object of our attention and in the process, inhibit our flow.
time shortages, real and perceived
Time sense is crucial to play experience. Temporal affluence tends to promote play, but time pressure is usually a play killer. Chronic time shortages, either real or perceived, squeeze the play out of minds and bodies.
editors
By this, I don’t necessarily refer to harsh literary disciplinarians in the New York publishing industry, although I might. Rather, I’m talking about any editorial voices that lie within or outside of us. Editorial kill-joys often extinguish the play impulse before the first spark.
sense of self
Of all the play killers, one of the most notorious is an amplified sense of self. The more self-conscious I feel, the less likely I am to play freely. We see this clearly in public speaking of course, but also in the high school years, where students go from being self-unaware to self-conscious in a few short years. As the lens of attention begins to focus on self, play begins to fade.
philosophical
Finally, some play killers can be existential and philosophical. What is your core belief about the nature of the human experience? If you believe that life is a comedy, you’ll be more inclined to play. If you believe that life is a tragedy, what’s the point?
falling out: symptoms and warning signs
So much for the play killers. It’s important that we recognize them and avoid them whenever possible. At the same time, it’s essential that we recognize those moments when we’re falling out of play. Obviously, there’s going to be enormous variation here and no one set of symptoms will apply to everyone. But the following ideas might apply to you, your tribe, your organization or your culture.
You know you’re falling out of the play state when:
Your physical body starts to experience excess fatigue, irritability, anger or chronic pain. Perhaps the body is revolting against its predicament of play deprivation.
Your spirit begins to slide into ahedonia or depression. (Ahedonia is a loss of interest in pleasure; it is a close associate of depression.)
Your romantic relationships begin to slide into boredom and plateau. Communication and intimacy dissolve into increased distance and friction.
You become risk averse and begin to have lower tolerance for ambiguity. You are motivated by fear.
You become neophobic and start avoiding new experiences.
You become judgmental, defensive and fundamentalistic.
You are bored. Your curiosity wanes and you stop asking questions.
You become increasingly self-conscious.
You become reliant on habitual ways of thinking, especially black and white categorization.
Your explanatory style becomes stale and formulaic. You begin to bore yourself with your internal conversation. You generate the same set of explanations for events.
Your creativity gets stuck: you start generating the same material over and over again, without variation. Your ideas become cliché.
You fall back on rote methods and begin to rely on standardized rules and procedures.
letting yourself back in
OK, so for whatever reason, you’re out of the play state. By virtue of some event or circumstance, you’re just not in the playsphere any longer. You’re tired, bored, depressed or uninspired and now you’d like to get back in.
Unfortunately, there’s no formula or recipe– every solution will be different. Just as every play experience is unique, so too is every rebound. If you want to get back into play, you’re going to have to create your way in.
We can’t force our way back into the play state, just as we can’t force your way into flow or into love. Rather we have to create the right conditions and allow the spirit to come to us. Like health itself, play will return when the conditions are favorable.
So, while we can’t force the issue with a strict program of cause and effect, there are some things that we can do to improve the odds:
start with the body
Start with the body and look for autonomic balance. If you’re too stressed, you’re in fight-flight and you’re not going to be playing much. If you’re too comfortable in “feed and breed,” you won’t feel the drive to jump out of the ordinary. Learn the tricks for pushing your stress levels up and down.
new moves
Look for new positions, movements and sensations. Let your body send fresh feedback to your brain. Try a new physical discipline or a fresh approach to an old favorite.
balance between challenge and skill
Look for a flow state by adjusting the difficulty of the challenge, or by increase your skills. Things that are too easy or too hard discourage both flow and play. Step back from your predicament and tweak the challenge so that you’re in the sweet spot of perfect difficulty. Be more ambitious or less so.
turn things upside down and backwards
Make a mess, let order break down. Embrace entropy, let things fall apart. You can clean it up later.
Set up a rhythm. Make a mess, clean it up. Make a mess, clean it up. Your play is the mess making. Get into it.
leave it to chance, embrace risk and ambiguity
Give up on safety. Play is often dangerous.slay your pet darlings
Standard advice to writers and other creators: take your most cherished turns of phrase, your most precious paragraphs, your most hard-won passages, and delete them. Let go of the solid ground and jump back into the ocean of imagination. Give your mind over to the chaos of creativity.
go neo
Expose yourself to something completely different. Travel. Put yourself into a fresh predicament. Play a different role; write yourself a new job title.
create an enriched environment
Customize your play space for maximum creative conditions. Tweak the layout, the order and the relationships. More light, more color, more novelty, more inspiration and more change.
dream impossible things before breakfast
Practice personal brainstorming, completely without a sense of practicality. Ignore the editor and the critic. The editor, whether internal or external, should come late to the game, if at all. Give him the day off or better yet, an extended vacation. He obviously needs it.
oxymorons
Nourish some oxymorons, ideas that combine two normally contradictory elements. Oxymoron is from Greek oxy ("sharp" or "pointed") and moros ("dull"). Oxymorons are powerful stimulants to play. As Tom Ward, editor, Journal of Creative Behavior put it,
“To enhance creativity, merge two previously separate concepts that are in conflict with one another. For example, combinations such as ‘friendly enemy’ and ‘healthful illness.’ The more discrepant the concepts, the more likely they are to result in novel properties.”chase down a fascination, nurture a holy curiosity
What are you most curious about in this world? What do you really want to know more about? If you had unlimited resources, what would you investigate? What discipline would you study? What skill would you develop?
find playful role models
Start spending more time with playful people. These individuals keep our bodies and minds in motion. Make a list of the most playful people in your life and call them up. If you’re stuck, imagine what a playful person would do in your predicament. Think of the most playful person you know; what would he or she do in your situation?
get better toys
Get rid of the dull tools and the broken toys. Get new stuff and learn how to make it work for you. Keep tuning your tools and toys until they become invisible elements in the creative process.
change the boundaries
An overly expansive range of possibility can stagger the imagination and bring us to a standstill. On the other hand, if the range of options is too narrow, it can stifle our sense of movement. Try moving the fences in either direction.
timeless
Think outside the clock. Think back to childhood and your life before time consciousness. Did you ever care how long a thing took? Did you ever give the slightest thought to duration? It was the adventure that mattered.
abandon self
Ignore the self and get into process. Get into the act of learning, training and experiencing. Self is a distraction. Focus on the material, the curiosity, the object of your imagination.
permission to fail
To get back into play, we’ve got to give ourselves license to make errors and to produce lousy work, lots of it. Creativity is inherently wasteful. Nature’s exuberance generates millions of forms that die, all so that a select few can thrive. All artists generate a lot of material, most of which gets set aside or thrown away. No matter. It’s the generation that matters.
sharpen your skills
Finally, there’s a paradoxical way to enter the play state–by sharpening our skills. In the short term, this means labor, but look what happens: By upping our skill level, we get to play at a higher level. When we strive and practice the necessary reps, we stretch the mind-body into some new form and a new field of playful possibility begins to open up.
mastery
So what’s the potential here? How far can we go with our playskills? The short answer is that we don’t know because, as a culture, we haven’t really tried. In fact, we generally do the opposite. We spend untold millions of hours doing our level best to squelch the play impulse whenever possible. In schools, universities and the workplace, our mission is the same; find the play impulse and kill it dead, before it gets loose.
So perhaps it’s time to consult the imagination. Suppose there was an ancient culture in a land far, far away. A strange and mysterious race of men and women, one that valued play and actively trained for resilience and exuberance.
These play masters (or play shamans) we might suppose, were adept at turning adversity into play. They could do amazing things. Their awareness and consciousness was honed to extreme sensitivity. They could recognize the play killers at a distance and could recognize the precise instant when their minds and bodies began to fall out of play. And once outside, they knew how to rebound and let themselves back in.
The stories would have been legendary. In practice, the play shamans could turn fear into play. They could turn anger into play. They could take any negative experience–depression, illness, stress, loss–and turn it into something that moves, something of interest, something with promise. In reality, the play masters were just as weak, vulnerable and confused as any of us, but they had the knowledge, the skill and the training to make the difference. It was all the same challenge to them; take the adversity and transform it into something that moves.
And have fun doing it.
Why would we do it any other way?
