Thinking About Play

I recently came across an article by one of my favorite websites on the importance of play. This blog is currently in a series about using this month become more masculine by doing simple tasks like performing service, doing a debt reduction program and checking yourself for cancer. At first when I read this article about playing, it sounded almost in contraction of what I was raised to believe. When I was a child, I was told once I was an adult that I could no longer play because I had to be responsible and get a job which would take away the opportunity for playing. As a child, this reality struck a nerve because I wanted to find time to play, no matter what I was doing.

However, both being a working man and a playing man seem to go hand in hand. The following quote that the article references from the National Institute of Play shows this balance:

“Play refreshes a long-term adult-adult relationship; some of the hallmarks of its refreshing, oxygenating action are: humor, the enjoyment of novelty, the capacity to share a lighthearted sense of the world’s ironies, the enjoyment of mutual storytelling , the capacity to openly divulge imagination and fantasies, … These playful communications and interactions, when nourished, produce a climate for easy connection and deepening, more rewarding relationship – true intimacy.

Take play out of the mix, and like the oxygen deprived cyanotic, the relationship becomes a survival endurance contest. Without play skills, the repertoire to deal with inevitable stresses is narrowed. Even if loyalty, responsibility, duty, and steadfastness remain, without playfulness there will be insufficient vitality left over to keep the relationship buoyant and satisfying.”

That's why I am a firm believer in doing activities that are out of the box and will continue to play as long as I live.