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@ijyx@sunbeam.cityI think the best part about working with children is learning to play again
Early in our teens we stop playing. Society has this idea that play, at least improvised play, is only for children, and something we naturally grow out of. The only sort of "play" that is seen as "appropriate" for adults are organized games with set rules, and usually a goal
Anyway, that's BS. Today, I played with marbles. I built a tower out of building blocks. Last week, I drew a picture - not to "create" anything, just to have fun with pencils on paper. One day when I was not actually at work, I went to a playground to climb on a 2-meter-high rock. It was difficult (how did i do this when i was little??) and I was proud of myself when i did it
I can't believe I'm only 19 and have already missed out on this for half my life. And the only way I can accept that is if I promise myself that I'll never stop playing again
"Work" is defined as an activity directed towards a goal
I'd say "play" is the opposite of that - any activity that you do for the sake of the activity itself, without aiming towards a "goal"
We have this idea that work is for adults, play is for kids. As we grow up, we turn everything into a goal-directed activity.
We play a sport to win, or to stay healthy. We draw to create something beautiful. We cook to make food. We climb an obstacle to get to the other side. We read a book to finish it. We watch a movie in the evening to relax, and then are confused when we can't.
Capitalism brainwashes you into thinking that you've grown out of playing. It wants you to think that you can't possibly enjoy an activity for its own sake anymore, so you need an "incentive"
Don't fall for it, and play as often as you can
work and play, but it's getting political i guess
work and play, but it's getting political i guess
@ijyx Thank you for putting this out there.... we're.... people have been asking us (therapists, psychologists, friends) what we do that we enjoy, including one time earlier today when we were in a call with our psych and he asked "So what do you do for fun? What activities do you enjoy?" and we just stopped and thought about it until he asked "Hello? You still there?" and we realized we had spent 5 minutes trying and failing to come up with an activity.
You're absolutely right that everything has become goal oriented. We try and learn new things but only because we feel accomplished afterwards....
We don't know how to have fun.... we honestly can barely remember even doing so when we were younger.... Honestly not sure where to even start anymore, but we've definitely got something to think about, so thank you.
The real trick will be trying to do thing for the sake of doing it and not trying to have fun if that makes sense.
@ijyx a couple of days ago a neighbor and I spontaneously walked to a nearby park and played catch for an hour, it was great
@ijyx some serious homo ludens vibes here
I'd say a large part of what we're drawn to is actually fun, not play specifically - might contradict the post-left playbook but these are fuzzy noumena to begin with anyway, so adjacent to different emotions and states of being.
"Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life."
Or, as Crowley put it, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
Everyone feels the elephant in different ways, even when they're just writing pop songs. "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." "Do You Enjoy What You Do?"
Deep down, everyone knows it: Nobody wants to work, nobody wants to be bored, nobody wants to pretend they give a *single shit* about boring business garbage, Everybody engages in petty deviance. But there's no sense pretending that we don't want to look after our loved ones, either. I fixed something my wife uses around the house and didn't resent the time the way I would have if my boss asked me to do it.
It's complex but yeah the bottom line is that capitalism, mercantilism and feudalism are all completely bizarre and unnatural ways of being and their persistence is owed to some kind of weird collective delusion.
@ijyx Sometimes I will pick something I'm interested in, and just play with it. Both because it's fun (and who doesn't like fun?), but also because I know that ultimately I'll learn something from it. Even though it's unstructured, undirected, no procedures. Just seeing what I can do with it, what I enjoy doing with it.
This is one of the ways kids and young animals learn, why can't I?
Plus. You know. It's fun. And we sure need plenty of that right now.
@ijyx This is good thinking. In my own reflection, I've found that in general my diminished desire to "play" is correlated with my diminished curiosity as I've aged.
There's a cool documentary on netflix about the science on early childhood development, and the episode on curiosity really made my think about how my psychology has changed. Now you've got me thinking about how those changes have been induced through socialized.
@ishara This really makes sense to me
Play, to me, is spontaneous. I have an idea, and I pursue it in that moment. If I have time to create plans or goals, I automatically will, and that'll make the activity less fun. When I really manage to *play*, it's because I follow through on a spintaneous idea
Learning is actually an example of that. If I have the idea (e.g. a question, or the impulse to study something) and immediately follow through on it, I'll enjoy the process and be tempted to learn more. If the idea comes from somewhere else (e.g. a school assignment) or I take the time to turn it into a task ("hey, duolingo was fun today. I should set myself a goal to do it *everyday*), that'll have pretty much the opposite effect
One of the reasons people enjoy having kids and grandkids is it gives them an excuse to play.