We grow out of childhood and leave behind “childish things.” We feel that we shouldn’t act this way anymore, and get a sort of willful amnesia for pure play experiences. Seeing a child like Leo reminds us of the joy we may be leaving behind. I talk a lot about play in children, but it’s interesting to me that the focus of the conversation often com

Last, play provides a continuation desire. We desire to keep doing it, and the pleasure of the experience drives that desire. We find ways to keep it going. If something threatens to stop the fun, we improvise new rules or conditions so that the play doesn’t have to end. And when it is over, we want to do it again.

We strive to always be productive, and if an activity doesn’t teach us a skill, make us money, or get on the boss’s good side, then we feel we should not be doing it. Sometimes the sheer demands of daily living seem to rob us of the ability to play.

EACH OF THESE PEOPLE, Barbara, Jason, and Mark, is an example of the critical fact that the opposite of play is not work—the opposite of play is depression. 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

We also need the purpose of work, the economic stability it offers, the sense that we are doing service for others, that we are needed and integrated into our world. And most of us need also to feel competent. Even people who are independently wealthy and never need to work a day in their lives find that they need to volunteer or donate to good cau

And as lab managers at JPL discovered, object play with the hands creates a brain that is better suited for understanding and solving problems of all sorts.

Schools have evolved into assembly lines for high test scores, where skills are drilled, supposedly all the better to prepare kids for college.

We need the sense of discovery and liveliness that it provides.

The work that we find most fulfilling is almost always a recreation and extension of youthful play.