In some of the things I’ve gone through lately I have found that if I just play with my emotions just a little bit, that it makes it easier to get through to the other side. Or like you said it brings me “lightness and joy”. Thanks for this post.

The difference between playing in childhood and being entertained is a great way to put it.

For those I know who were brought up to do well, some of them have the problem of wanting to do well first time. This means there is no room for learning. They can even want to get it right first time. This is an awful thing to do to a child (or student).

Thanks for commenting, articulately and thoughtfully, once again.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

I most related to the idea that play is strange. And therefore often foreign to me. Wondering now why I might engage play.

I don’t think, despite what was described as play as a child, most have a real grasp on what play is. Which is then, as you said, we look for the easier route of being entertained. And even as I say that, I realize I wasn’t taught to play (which I may have needed to be), I was given things to entertain me, keep me occupied when I was a child. And along with it I was given something else.

Many of those activities became goal oriented, i.e, winning at sports, at school, in clubs. Acieving an end. If I look at it fully in my own life it was all preparatory work for what was to come. A need to succeed, exceed, excel, accomplish, win. In academics, in business, even in the goal of good health via physical exercise.

It is then no wonder I have resistance to some activity, having ‘failed’ to do well, including finding something now to play.

So play is strange because it seems to lack a naturalness about it. Not that it is not natural, but what so often seems to be changed about that state of being along the way.