On the importance of play
Play is serious
Fun is an important signal you can’t afford to neglect as an adult.
But too often fun as an adult looks only like over consumption and a turn to hedonism, a philosophy where enjoyment and pleasure are the most important aims.
What does that look like in the sports world? You get the overweight superfan who lives to drink away his sorrows on the weekend in a series of voyeuristic orgies of overconsumption.
The modern sports fan couldn’t play a sport if his life depended on it, and unfortunately if you look at the health metrics of most sports fans, it really does.
All of this stems from a complete misunderstanding of fun and play.
Adults live in the ‘serious’ world.
Jobs for serious work
Money for serious bills
Social status in serious relationships
Following along the serious news
Exercising for serious health
It’s all too heavy, so we tilt too hard the other way when we’re told to have fun. We abandon virtue and dive head first into pleasure for it’s own sake. We think we’ve ‘earned it.’ We ‘work to live’ and ‘live for the weekend.’
You’re not having the right type of fun. Sounds preachy. I don’t care.
I believe the body holds deep truth and a person who has fun ‘abusing’ their body through overconsumption sends a mixed signal to the world. The words say fun, but the body says “HELP ME”
Play is so serious, that when you get it wrong it messes the entire structure of your life’s meaning up.
Let me explain a bit further using sports as our intellectual playing field and then I’ll give some strategies and actions we can all use in our lives to properly orient and realize play in our ‘serious’ adult lives.
‘Playing’ sports as an adult
They call it ‘playing sport’ for a reason.
Kids intuitively get it. They understand the seriousness of play. They are ALL consumed by it. Nothing else matters. The outside world dissolves into the world of deep meaning in the playworld.
Why?
Because they are learning. They are understanding themselves and their relation to things. There isn’t the burden of the action to be ‘utilized’ to some external goal. The goal is to score more goals and win the game. What could be more serious than that to a child?
Play is the proper orientation towards order, making it out of the chaos of the world. It’s drawing the boundaries around action, “this is in bounds, that’s out of bounds.”
The times kids lose themselves most in play is when they are actively CREATING through it. Creating stories, creating games, creating opportunities, creating possibilities.
It’s not the consumption that brings their spirits alive, it’s the action.
When kids watch TV they aren’t engaged in play, they’re engaged in a distraction from their imagination.
Now think about that modern sports fan. Are they engaged in any type of play?
Not that I think deserves to be called play.
They aren’t in their body in a moment of hyperpresence, their living outside their body in a consumptive spectatorship. They play at betting, the play at eating, they play at trash talking, they play at drinking.
They aren’t PLAYING SPORTS. They mistake the seriousness of the world for the ability to become unserious around sports.
But in doing say they miss the entire value of play, to lose yourself in self expression, curiosity, overcoming challenging, and becoming a refined and better version of yourself. And doing it all from the love that emanates out of your heart to enjoy the activity and improve for it’s own sake.
That’s how you need to start thinking of play.
How to harness play in your fitness
“Ok Mr. Professor, we get it, play is serious. Now what?”
Great question!
Here’s what I got for you.
FIRST: Remember how it felt to play sports as a kid without a care in the world?
Find ways to move like that as an adult. Go and do the specific thing you haven’t in years or experiment and try new sports until you find a new one that speaks to you.
I played high level soccer but had to give it up due to injuries, I didn’t find any way of moving that made me feel alive like that until a friend suggested I got run in the forest on a trail. My life changed in that first 1km on the trails.
You need to rediscover the love of physical play
SECOND: Aim your entire fitness around THAT feeling
The serious work of the gym can’t be neglected, but it should support your ability to have fun and improve in whatever sport you’re now finding enjoyment playing.
I don’t enjoy lifting weights but I don’t want a weak body that breaks down from too much hard running on the trails. My love of motion disciplined me to take on the structure I couldn’t stick to on its own.
THIRD: Find or create a community to keep DOING that sport
For many of us, the fun of sports and the play come with others. Even in solo sports, being a part of a team helps bind you to something greater than yourself and makes the shared struggles worthwhile.
I leverage my love of trail running and philosophy into a coaching role on an endurance training team, but I just want to be one of the guys most days. Travelling to races, coaching from the side, being in the arena together. It’s making all the play mean so much more, doing it together.
It’s a simple framework, but the best wisdom is often simple in theory. It’s the application part that’s tricky.
That’s why you need love, fun, and play to be your guiding star.
It’s takes the ‘serious work’ out of the application.
So all that’s left is what matters.
Happy Training Friends!