Respecting our biologically programmed need for play can transform work. It can bring back excitement and newness to the job. Play helps us deal with difficulties, provides a sense of expansiveness, promotes mastery of our craft, and is an essential part of the creative process. Most important, true play that comes from our own inner needs and

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Play can easily be dismissed as childish, irresponsible and unbecoming of the seriousness required of us modern achievement-subjects. But the demand for playful living is really a demand to reject the conditions of the achievement society. Embracing play is a bold defiance against the relentless productivity mantra of the achievement society. But

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What would it mean to live more playfully? First, it would require us to reject work that is not intrinsically motivating and to build working conditions that are joyfully engaging. Second, it would require that we de-emphasise the importance of work for finding personal fulfilment and meaning in our lives. Despite work being central to who we are

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I’m not even saying that the position I’m suggesting here—that there is a play principle at the basis of all physical reality—is necessarily true. I would just insist that such a perspective is at least as plausible as the weirdly inconsistent speculations that currently pass for orthodoxy, in which a mindless, robotic universe suddenly produces... See more

However, in essence he identifies four characteristics of play and relates them to the development of culture and civilization: (1) (2) Freedom. Whereas much leisure performs a cultural function by fulfilling ritual obligations or duties, play follows the dictate of voluntary enjoyment. While many play-elements have been co-opted by leisure to... See more