13. Play

They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. –Exodus 32:6

I would do well to aspire to the simple, genuine purposelessness so readily exhibited by children building sandcastles on the beach. Why do they do it? The "work" they put into their creation is soon washed away, as if it never existed. There must be some intrinsic value to the play itself.

As an adult, I have lost the ability to do something simply because it is fun to do. In fact, there are strong sanctions in the adult world, formal and informal, against engaging in an activity simply for the sake of pleasure. When does this happen? Where, on my to-do lists, is there a space for "play," or is the very nature of a to-do list about extrinsic value of a reward offered by a boss, a spouse, or a client?

In some settings, it is only the quantifiable that is valued. The prevailing cultural norm of many adult institutions is built around what can be counted or defined as effective. How would you measure pleasure? The argument could be made that people who like their work are motivated by the pleasure resulting from a job well done, but there may be a higher pleasure-plane accessible to you through engaging in behavior that is an end in itself vs. a means to an end: call it the sandcastle principle.

Maybe, as an adult, you have experienced a sort of indoctrination into a culture of watching others play: a concert, an organized professional sports, even your own children on the stage or the field. The pleasure you experience in this vicarious act of witnessing may fall short of the experience which is accessible only when you follow the sandcastle principle.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do; play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
–Mark Twain

What are the spaces in life that we reserve for the pure and cleansing experience of purposelessness?