"Here we see again what far too many of us forgot far too long ago: there is something about taking the time to do nothing important that is important. Play washes ambition out of the soul. Instead, it is about doing something simply for the pure joy of doing it. For one brief moment in the midst of striving to stay alive, there is no product to be produced, no personal gain to be sought, nothing to prove. That may be why childhood is so largely devoted to play, to the exhilaration of aimlessness. It is the one period in life when we are allowed to wallow in the understanding that just being alive is enough for us. No money or medals needed. No evaluations expected. No better or worse implied.
"Play releases the mind to think outside the boundaries of both the self and the society that shapes us. It teaches us the joy of freedom and gives us the right to break all the rules: we can dirty our shoes, laugh out loud, slide in the grass and blow bubbles to nowhere, and no one will care. It enables us to stop taking ourselves too seriously, an insight of eternal importance if we are to live well with others and be able to bear our own failures later when being able to fail becomes our greatest success in life.
"We learn, too, that, in the end, life is itself a 'house of cards' built to collapse — however much the strain or tension, skill or concentration we give it as we go. Play exposes us to the fact that there is nothing we ever do in life, however high we go in the process, that is permanent. Only that simple lesson itself is permanent. And, in the end, that may well be enough to carry us calmly and expectantly from one of life's games to the next."
