Children play and adults work. This of course is the sad truth of it all.
The adult proclivity to become addicted to work is one of the truisms of American life. The older we get the more the dismal tide approaches until finally we are neck deep in work and fatigue and stress and debt.
By age 30 you’re hooked by the pull to succeed, to achieve, to win, to get rich, to pay your mortgage and then if things really go well perhaps enter the ranks of those special few we now call the one-percenters.
It’s truly a shame that we’ve forgotten what is to have fun, to hang out, to play, to giggle and to chill out.
Before age 12 this seems to be a natural ability and even teens still seem to be able to relax by your mid-20s our competitive urges seem to take charge and it’s all push, push, push from there.
And by your 30s the battle scars begin to mount.
As a sport psychologist I have often heard my athlete/patients remark that they need to learn how to relax, have fun, be in the moment and to begin to enjoy their sport once again.
Many of them feel that their sport has become more work and less play and their performance suffers.
If you watch golf you could see this problem on the faces of nearly every golfer struggling with the wind and green speed at Augusta National.
If only a little birdie could have whispered in their ear to relax and enjoy their moment at this magnificent place they would have played better and had a better time of it.
There is only one book of any real consequence which explored the issue of play.
“Homo Ludens,” written back in 1944 by Johan Huizinga, is a classic on the play element in culture. He showed how play gave birth to poetry, music, dance, medieval festivals, men’s and women’s fashion, theater, sports, ball games, card games, board games and more.
In fact it permeates almost every aspect of culture and serves a multitude of purposes including relaxation, discharge of energy and social bonding.
Play is always set apart from reality with its own language, rules, space and rituals.
Huizinga and many social critics have suggested that since the age of enlightenment in the 18th century the play element has diminished as our sense of the rationality and competitiveness has increased.
Adults have been captivated by science, technology, reason, progress and logic to the neglect of play, fantasy, imagination, fun and magic.
Our sense of play has been all but extinguished under the influence of capitalism and endless ads which hook us into consumerism.
Clearly I needed to do field research on this play situation so off I went to Willis Hobbies on Willis Avenue in Mineola to look around at their toys.
David McConnell gave me a nice tour.
The first thing he showed me was a small model of a 1979 Ford Country Squire with eight headlights.
This of course is the famous “Wagon Queen Family Truckster driven by the Griswold’s on their journey to Walley World in the 1983 American road comedy “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”
Actually Willis Hobbies is a wonderland of magic filled with model toys and trains of every sort.
There is an entire range of toys from Lego’s and Tommie Trains all the way up to complex model sets of battle ships which would take an adult six months to complete.
Let me return to the first toy I saw there, the Griswold Wagon Queen Family Truckster.
If we attempt to analyze the premise of that film we see an average middle class family on a desperate and utterly failed attempt to have some fun.
They leave their suburban home in Chicago on a summertime quest to find joy at Walley World in Southern California. Along the way they get mugged, ripped off, get seduced by Christie Brinkley, endure their white trash relatives, are stuck with Aunt Edna, kill Aunt Edna’s dog, break down in the desert and when they do finally get to Walley World they see it is closed down for two weeks.
Poor Mr. Griswold has a psychotic break, buys a plastic gun, breaks into Walley World and forces an attendant to let them go on the roller coaster.
This may not be far off from the average American’s dilemma.
We seem to have ample opportunities to find entertainment but somehow it’s not really doing the trick. It takes too long and cost too much to get there and it all leaves you flat and empty in the end.
Whether you are an elite athlete no longer having fun at sports or an average adult no longer having fun at life, something needs to change. I know what I do to find happiness.
I am a believer that our best guides to happiness are the artists, the dancers and writers.
They are the ones that spend their entire life at play. I think that the most edifying thing about standing in front of a great piece of art is that you see that someone has had fun making it.
In the rock anthem “Like a Rolling Stone” by Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan there is a line which states “You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you.”
Those are wise words. Life is short, maybe very short. Don’t let it slip away before you have your fun. Everyone must figure out what they enjoy doing and then it is their job to go out and do it.
Don’t let kids or athletes or artists have all the fun.
You can have fun too. Or as the Nike ad said “Just do it”.
And in this case what we mean is ‘go have some fun.”
