A force of nature

Play is an animating force

Our journey through time makes clear that the more power that play demonstrates — the more resistance, contempt, and hostility it meets — the more potent it grows. It’s this cycle that gives us an inkling into what play truly is.

Through this brief exploration, we’ve seen perceptions of play shift from an evolutionary byproduct to a superfluous distraction that ought to be kept to a minimum. But we’ve also seen proof that its exuberant, generative, and — yes — inefficient nature is exactly what makes it so essential and so powerful. In this sense, the definition of play cannot be reduced to any certain kind of activity; it behaves more like a form of energy itself.

No matter our age, play empowers us to think and communicate differently, to step outside of the ordinary. It opens us to moments of serendipity, it enriches our lives, it enables us to connect over a common language where one otherwise might not exist. And so, too, play can quickly become incompatible with the mechanistic systems and organizations that are designed to shape and manage orderly, predictable, neatly divided societies. 

After all, play is inherently unpredictable: in its deeply human and naturally chaotic way, it opens us up to the unexpected (and perhaps uninvited) questioning of fundamental ideas that underpin everything from power and purpose to our relationships with ourselves and others. Taken to the extreme, it can be a real and tangible threat to formatted societies, established ideologies, even economic systems — merely because it prompts us to step just outside of what’s typically permitted.

An animating force of nature, it has the potential to breathe life into everything it touches.

And what are forces if not powers to be reckoned with? No wonder it’s our natural human instinct to do with play what we do with most every other powerful force we encounter: to fear it, control it, contain it so that it stays inert and unthreatening; to protect the integrity and predictability of our best-laid plans, maintaining an unwavering status quo.

So what’s keeping play at bay?

If play is something to be controlled and contained — lest it get out of hand — then it begs the question, who’s doing the controlling? What motivates them? What are they so afraid of? To answer these questions, we needed to probe into enemy territory. If play stands for expression and exploration, creativity and curiosity, openness and willingness to learn … who dares to stand on the other side? Surely these are all positive values, no? 

‘Sure, when kept in check,’ those enemies might respond. 

And with this understanding, it becomes clear that play’s enemies must keep powerful company — the kind of company invested in maintaining control and compliance. So when we think about answering the question, what’s keeping play at bay, we imagine a three-headed monster with its tentacles wrapped up in our most enduring structures; a monster so powerful that it can even turn us against our own inherently playful souls.

Its three heads? Cultural baggage, capitalistic expectations, and power itself.

Capitalist expectations

In just about every conceivable way, it seems that capitalism — as a system, a structure, and an ideology — is in opposition with play’s very essence; its straight lines in conflict with play’s squiggles. And while this may seem like a modern problem we might attribute to #hustleculture — and fair, the grind-centric children’s books are indeed next-level — in truth, the roots go much deeper. 

It’s hard to pick apart the values of modern capitalist society from those of the Protestant work ethic. The accumulation of wealth, the pursuit of enterprise, the value of hard work: these are, supposedly, the core tenets of a life worth living. Achieving individually, reaping exclusive rewards, and winning out over rivals: the milestones that ensure a ladder well-climbed. This addiction to productivity — a closed loop where self-worth is measured by constantly completing the next task or reaching the next goal — not only suffocates any opportunity for play (an activity scorned as a waste of time), but also invalidates playfulness and creativity as practices that can foster valuable, consequential ideas.

Play needs free time, and we don’t have it. After all, capitalism has an inherent temporal bias toward the future — chasing the next thing, the next dollar — whereas play is intrinsically present. It encourages us to stop and linger. To laze, even. 

Play also needs freedom of expression, freedom to let loose. Yet too often, people are made to feel ashamed of their fun — as though, of course, there are more important things to attend to. “Don’t you have goals?,” the naysayers — and even, often, our own internal voices — ask, never stopping to consider that play might be a valid, even necessary, means of pursuing them both individually and collectively. 

Power dynamics

The forces of culture and capitalism would have us believe that play is synonymous with disorder. And so, of course, it’s only natural that the powers that be would aim to exercise control. In their view, play should only happen under certain circumstances and for certain purposes, accessible strictly to those who fit an exclusive set of criteria — creating a power imbalance between those whose remit it is to maintain the status quo and those who’d wish to challenge it.

And so, despite the fact that the United Nations recognizes play as a right of every child — and the Convention on the Rights of the Child explicitly positions play as a fundamental right — not everyone has the time, space, or resources to experience it. As a proxy for power, wealth tends to facilitate access to the kinds of safe spaces, equipment, and materials required for play — and perhaps more importantly, determine just how much agency one has over their time, idle or otherwise. Gender, race, and ability can create barriers of their own, but it all comes back to power and privilege. 

So let’s zoom out for a moment, beyond the practicalities of play, and consider how power structures operate within the likes of institutions, organizations, and societies writ large. To have ‘power over’ is to demand submission, assume systematic outcomes, and enact top-down control. To embrace play, for children and adults alike, is to experience and cultivate freedom, cooperation, lawlessness, and joyful disorder. So, of course, play and traditional forms of power are like oil and water; by definition, play creates a contradiction. 

Any force that makes us more human, more curious, and more cooperative is naturally a threat to the competitive, individualistic, and hegemonic structures in place. 

In the context of most institutional organizations, rules and regulations limit the individual’s freedom to engage in anything too unstructured or spontaneous — monitored and enforced by everything from automated time-tracking software to rigid bureaucratic structures. This same structure has been replicated in the power dynamics between children and those responsible for their growth and development. As Peter Gray, a psychology professor emeritus at Boston College, outlines: the decline in free play we’ve seen over the last several years is “at least partly because adults have exerted ever-increasing control over children’s activities. As true at home as it is at school, we see this dynamic in everything from the heightened intensity of youth sports to the declining prevalence of recess. Per the CDC, only eight states in the U.S. require elementary schools to provide daily recess, and since the mid-2000s, up to 40% of school districts across the nation reduced or eliminated its presence entirely.

So, what kind of world are we creating when we deprioritize play at every turn? What are we encouraging by dampening its power and raising barriers to its access? From hampering people’s ability to embrace, adapt, and react to changing circumstances to stifling creativity and innovation, keeping play contained and restrained has real ramifications, stunting our growth as individuals, communities, and societies world over.