So, what is this thing they call play?
If the word brings back just a few hazy images from your childhood, you’re certainly not alone. The modern world has become so saturated with teachings of productivity that play has unfortunately come to be seen as a waste of time. Serious people had important work to do, and childish things were to be stripped away as much as possible. It even reached the point where children themselves were forced to sacrifice play, so that they could acquire the necessary qualities they were expected to accumulate as quickly as possible.
But the truth is this: humanity has buried a most precious treasure under the ground and simply forgotten it.
So then, shall we dig the soil a little together and see what we can find?
“Every play activity, before anything else, is a voluntary act. It is not a duty. Play is freedom.”
Beyond our lives filled with goals, obligations, and necessities, play stands apart. Because it does not point to direct benefits, it has not been imprisoned in the chains of contemporary requirements—it is practiced by choice.
“Play is not daily life, nor is it real life itself. Play is an escape from it.”
This is why it is often done in so-called “free time.” It is within life, yet apart from it. Perhaps it could be likened to a dream, or a vision.
“Play takes place in a specific time and space.”
In contrast to our everyday rush, where we can never fully be in one place, play is limited to a particular setting and a defined period of time. Its beauty comes precisely from here. Life sometimes makes us lost—both in space and in time—yet play offers the chance to exist on a marked plane of time and space.
“Play creates order, play is order. Amid the imperfection of the world and the confusion of life, it creates a temporary and limited perfection.”
Perhaps the hardest thing for our minds to bear in today’s world is uncertainty. The alienation caused by economic systems has blurred our ability to see the interconnections of events, trapping us in a chaos where meaning is lost. Within this endless disorder, play is a realm of created perfection.
“Play embraces and releases. It absorbs. It captures—one might say, it enchants.”
In a world where we have grown isolated, play enables us to reconnect—both with others and with ourselves.
“Every play has its own rules. These rules are commanding and unquestionable. If they are broken, the play-universe collapses.”
Unlike the rules that surround us in daily life—rules whose purpose we sometimes cannot even identify—the rules of play are set by us and accepted voluntarily. Play is the conscious renunciation of infinite possibilities in favor of the chosen frame. And because the rules bind everyone equally, they are just.
“Play contains both tension and joy.”
Those striving to fulfill the purpose of the game inevitably carry a certain tension, which tends to be released as the activity concludes, often giving way to delight.
So, let us attempt a small definition now:
Play is a voluntary act, freely embraced, unfolding within a specific time and space, guided by wholly binding rules, possessing an intrinsic purpose, carrying tension and joy, and set apart from daily life.
Now that we have a definition in hand, where does play appear in our lives? Let’s look into that in our next piece.
Thoughts on the game: