Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Location: Mount Hermon, Calif., planning the writers conference Career Track
The easy–but often inaccurate–way to see life is in black and white. If we’re playing, we’re not working; if we’re working, we’re not playing, right?
Not so. Stuart Brown, whom I mentioned in my post yesterday as the founder of the National Institute for Play, conducted 6,000 “play histories” of people from Nobel laureates to hardened criminals. Some of the highest achievers had the richest histories of play throughout their lives. Brown says, “For some, the work-play separation is virtually nonexistent.”
Brown goes on to say, “The opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression.” He describes a play-deprived person as someone who lives rigidly, hopelessly, and driven.
The qualities he attributes to play are:
- something done for its own sake
- a voluntary activity
- an activity with an inherent attraction for the player
- the player loses track of time and perhaps loses track of his or her own self
- involves improvisation
- leaves the player wanting to do more
So let’s do a little test to see what constitutes play in your life. Pick three activities that occur regularly for you. They might be stopping to pick up a latte, shopping (you name if it’s grocery shopping, shopping for clothes, or just meandering in a mall), jogging. Or maybe even writing. 😮
Now, let’s pass each item through the play test:
- Is this activity done for its own sake?
- Is it a voluntary activity?
- Is the activity inherently attractive to you?
- Do you lose track of time or lose track of yourself when involved in the activity?
- Does the activity involve improvisation?
- Does it leave you wanting to do it again?
Well? How did your activity list fare? What did the test tell you about play in your life?
I understand how play and work can blend seamlessly for many professions. One of my play pastimes includes visiting antique malls. I have a room in my home decorated all in 1940’s furniture and memorabilia, and it’s fun discovering new additions for it. However, since my writing sometimes involves the past, such places also “bring alive” realistic bits and pieces of bygone times and lifestyles. For me, a good antique mall can provide fertile loam for the imagination.
Love the definition of play! I see now that I play most of the time. Sometimes people even pay me to play. How great is that?!
Writing wins on the play side! 🙂
Of course, based on the amount of time I’ve spent on the activity, laundry has been my hobby for years. 🙁
Rick, what a great (and fun) way to both play and work. Lynn, getting paid to play is the best, isn’t it? Michelle, STOP! Go out and play with the dogs…as long as that tests as play for you. Do not do laundry today!
I agree with Michelle, writing wins on the play side 🙂 and laundry/housework is a hobby of mine too. 🙁
However as a dog owner who thinks the world of her dog, going outstide and playing with the dog usually involves cleaning up after the dog.
Definitely writing. Philosophy would be my second pick; there’s just something about getting together with people and getting to know the core of their beliefs that I find so fascinating, and spending all night chatting and finding out new things about them. Music would be the third pick; getting out the guitar and rocking with others, having not set play list but just improvising as we go along, and yet somehow all finding harmony within the sound is sublime.
I recently returned to an attempt at “making life work,” and using a format that I’d developed in the past … one that, when my husband viewed it and was invited to critique it had a gaping hole. His addition? “Pamper and play.” So I added that to my list of daily things that will “make life work.” It’s a difficult thing to learn when you were raised by people with an “uber-work-ethic.”
Reading! Writing! (Definitely not arithmetic.)
Critique groups, church, going to the library, speaking at conferences, attending conferences, Walking the dog, looking at beautiful things, being with people I love. Sometimes even cooking, if I’m inventing a new recipe. My life is full of play!
Oh, that sounds like writing. I can get obsessed when writing, well … actually editing what I have already written.
I’m with you, Steph. My mother taught me as a child that I could play when I finished my work. She never foresaw that I would have that never ends. What now, Mom?
No play. That was me for too many years. While I considered ministry (not writing at that point) a “hobby” my wife rightly called it my second full time job.
A weekly briefing from Pat Morley of Man in the Mirror titled “All work and no play will make you a dull boy” haunted me for several years.
In 2009 a week layoff from work around my birthday and far too many episodes of “Ace of Cakes” led me to make my own birthday cake – inspired by a bbq and a love of meat. While it’s only a few times a year, it definitely passes the tests. (photo of that first cake plus others is at richgerberding.com on the “about” page)
Ministry and writing for me don’t quite pass the test of being done for its own sake, as there is a greater goal of seeing lives changed.
Perhaps I “play” more than I thought I did!
That’s good news, right, Peter?