Adult life is serious business that demands no fooling around in order to survive and thrive. Play is for children, at least that's what they tell us. Dr. Stuart Brown has a different idea. Trained in general and internal medicine, psychiatry and clinical research, Stuart Brown first recognized the importance of play by discovering its absence in the life stories of murderers and felony drunken drivers. His years of clinical practice affirmed the importance and need for healthy play throughout the human life cycle, and his later evaluation of highly creative individuals revealed the centrality of playfulness to their success and well-being. This TED video, shot in May 2008, is worth watching. Here are four passages that resonated with me:
Play has a biological place, just like sleep and dreams...
The opposite of play in not work, it's depression. If you think about life without play–no humor, no flirtation, no movies, no games, no fantasy–try and imagine a culture or life, adult or otherwise, without play. The thing that is unique about our species is that we're really designed to play through our whole life...
The basis of human trust is established through play signals, and we begin to lose those signals, cultural and otherwise, as adults...
I would encourage you all to engage, not in the work/play differential where you set aside time to play, but where your life becomes infused, minute by minute, hour by hour, with body, object, social, fantasy, transformational kind of play and I think you'll have a better, more empowered life...
I love creative work because it requires play. Thinking "outside the box" is play expanding the game beyond previously determined borders to explore new territory and connect previously unconnected ideas. Play to me is like air. I need it to survive.
Just think how different the world would be if we took play seriously. It's worth considering. Dr. Brown has a new book titled Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. The National Institute for Play, founded by Dr. Stuart, is committed to the unrealized knowledge, practices, and benefits of play into the public life.
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