play

According to Diane Ackerman, “play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” I love to play with words, play the piano, watch a play and I used to play hockey. I’m not talking about video, computer or phone games which are referred to as “artificial play”. I’m thinking of childhood antics like running through a sprinkler on a hot summer afternoon across a green carpeted lawn screaming from the cold spray. It’s playing hide and seek and evading the seeker, finding a trail in the forest and looking for the highest branches of a tree to climb. It’s going to the local park to roll sideways down the hill or playing tag with each other. It’s making mud pies in the sandbox or sand castles in the sand with plastic shovels and pails and splashing in the clear, blue water jumping over the waves.

My neighbor runs a dayhome for children. I often hear the sounds of laugher, kids peek a booing through the fence at me and pretending they are explorers in the back yard. I am reminded of how creative children can be. Their self-expression is how they play and "is the highest form of research” (Albert Einstein) any adult could conduct. Have we as adults lost our childhood playfulness?

Just because we are “grown up” doesn’t mean we can’t concoct some element of playfulness. Health and well-being - particularily mental health - are so important for cognitive, social, affective and motor skill development in children. Experiencing creativity and play only contributes to their growth. According to a 2012 Marks-Tarlow study, they found that freedom to play is a key ingredient for joy, interest, passion and vitality later in life.

Two Greek words capture this freedom of play. Aristotle believed that eudaimonia is the highest human good and ability to realize one’s truest potential; while Apicurus thought that hedonia was that happines and positive effects contributed to feeling good. After all, who does not want to have that passion, love and vitality in one’s life? Start today to find that childlike play within us. It’s good for the soul.

Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy. Psalm 126: 2-3