This chapter focusses on work and our life responsibilities. We feel that work is serious, if we’re playing we will be seen to not be taking work seriously, not working hard enough or focusing on the task in hand. Not playing can make us depressed and unhappy.
“Our inherent need for variety and challenge can be buried by an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Over the long haul, when these spice-of-life elements are missing, what is left is a dulled soul.” Page 126
If we can get the right balance of play and work they can support each other and equally make for a happier life.
“We need newness of play, its sense of flow, and being in the moment. We need the sense of discovery and liveliness that it provides. We also need the purpose of work, the economic stability it offers, the sense that we doing service for others, that we are needed and integrated into our world. And most of us need also to feel competent.” Page 126
This is certainly true in the UK. I had a period of working at Wagamama’s between jobs and it was great fun but I hated telling people that’s what I did. When you meet new people or even old friends you’ll always asked ‘what do you do?’. I just didn’t feel competent with the role as I’ve always felt I should be an artist. To get here I’ve had to have a lot of different jobs to make it possible. Now my job is creative and when I create I’m playing and creating playful experiences for others giving me that sense of doing a service for others.
“When people come back to work from true play vacations, they are eager and energised for work. Page 127
Play is nature’s greatest tool for creating new neural networks and for reconciling cognitive difficulties. The abilities to make new patterns, find unusual among common, and spark curiosity and alert aberrations are all fostered by being in a state of play” Page 127-128
I can’t change everyones work for them but I can create play vacations with my art installations. It could be at a festival over a weekend where they visit with their friends and family and all play together or it could an installation in the city centre which they stop and play with during their lunch time.
“Sometimes when a situation is really heading south, a moment of imaginative play is the only thing that provides enough distance to see the way out of a predicament” Page 131
Having an playful installation in a city centre or at a business park could be just what someone needs to allow them self to step back from the situation and then to go into work and approach the situation with a fresh new mind.
“Work matters, but we often allow day-to-day events at work to give us more anxiety than they are worth. Getting oneself into a play safe, however, masks the urgent purposefulness and associated anxiety of work, increasing efficiency and productivity.” Page 133-134
Having a moment of play will help creativity and innovation flow giving new ideas and different ways to approach problems.
“Allow yourself to be abundant in your creativity, at first not making judgements about what you think, feel, or do. Simply play with your ideas, with how you things.” Page 141
This mixture of playing with work will help you to become a master.
“People reach the highest levels of a discipline because they are driven by love, by fun, by play.” Page 143
The more I read the more I feel compelled to make playful installations near to peoples work places to give them a moment to play and in turn to become their best self.
It seems easy for us the loose play in our work. With all of our responsibilities it seems like play gets lost and pushed to one side. Today this is leading to mid-life crises as teens, in our twenties, thirties and forties. I particularly remember having one when I was about twenty. My husband was working for couple who are a bit older than us, we went to a birthday at their house. It was the first time I’d visited their home and it was so lovely and I felt this huge burden of how I am ever going to achieve this? It seemed impossible. Interestingly now I don’t have as lovely home as they did but I am happy, content. This must be because I get to play everyday, not only in my work, with my lovely dog, amazing husband and in my social life with my friends and family. Others aren’t as lucky as me, they’re lives and mind set just don’t allow for play.
“Most of the time, we have internalised society’s messages about play being a waste of time that we shame ourselves into giving up play.” Page 145
“Perhaps this fact lies behind the culturally supported idea that people who play are superficial, are not living in the really worlds, are dilettantes or amoral slackers.” Page 147
Thanks to Covid-19 I think this has changed a bit. Many of us have been given the gift of time and we’ve been encouraged to play outside and we’ve had to spend time with our families. I’m hopefully that this will continue to be encouraged to do this but I have a feeling that life will go back to what it was, full of busy-ness and the need to achieve.
“If we had a simple test for play like we do for diabetes or high blood pressure, we could look at a number and realise that we are in danger. But we don’t have such a test. Instead we have a smouldering, play-deficient sense that something is missing in life, that we are not getting the feeling of joy and energy that we once did. The question is how do we get the feeling back?” Page 150
Could playful art be part of the answer?
“There is no simple recipe for bringing back a sense of play in your life and work… There are ways to jump-start play… I find that physical activity – movement of any sort – has a way of getting past our mental defences.” Page 150
Maybe if it included movement. I try and encourage movement through my work, I feel that people get a lot more from it if they are physically involved. Until now it’s just been a hunch, it’s great to know that there additional benefits to playful movement.
“I conducted a study showing regular physical activity could help seriously depressed women rise out of their depressions.” Page 150
“The first three months were titanic struggles, but then the positive effects of conditioning, exercise, and group solidarity allowed the majority (some had dropped out) to note lessening their depressing and improved overall well-being.” Page 151
This is incredibly helpful to know. Health and well-being is a popular benefit that people want from art commissions. To have this as a fact will be really helpful for future applications. It encourages me to continue to include movement from the participants within my work and to continue to make interactive elements that encourage team.
“Body play is the first thing that shows up in evolution. Species capable of play show this in their exaggerated jumps, twists and turns, quirky off-balance to gain balance movements, done apparently because they are fun to experience.” Page 152
I’m up for continuing to make it happen. Being able to have installations that allow people to break from their day-to-day lives to help them bring play into their lives is the dream. I just need to make it happen!
The closing statement of chapter five is from James Michener’s autobiography:
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving other to decide whether he is working or playing, To him, he’s always done both.” Page 152
