All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Play is essential to life, even animals play. Play is what makes life enjoyable. Play causes happiness, lowers stress and fatigue, and makes us more pleasant to be around. Being serious all the time or working all the time is just plain exhausting. The lack of play is a death sentence. We are currently living in a zombie apocalypse, and no one even noticed. Capitalism, consumerism, pandemics, politics, religions, war, racism, sexism, and every other ism. There is a lot of shit going on in the world right now. So many of us are too focused on all the negativity and so few of us have any positivity in our lives. How do we become happier?
Who are the happiest people on earth? Who plays the most? Children. Even now children are slowly being turned into zombies from birth. Children are losing the ability to play. Babies are being sat in front of tablets and being handed phones as a method of distraction. Children aren't even being given the chance the learn how to play. With the rise of technology comes the rise in suicide, depression, anxiety, and just plain misery. Too many of us spend our lives staring at a screen and never playing. Video games isn't play, not that there's anything wrong with videogames in moderation. Play requires the use of our imagination. Screens take away our ability to use our own imagination and therefore take away the ability to play.
There is a whole generation of people who never learned how to play. Education is heavily dropping along with mental health, physical health and social aspects. The more time we spend looking at screens the more detached from the real world we become. We are becoming afraid of each other, and social anxiety is at an all-time high. We have been turned into zombies just working to keep the system going.
Some of us were raised in homes where we weren't allowed to play, have fun or be happy due to an abusive home environment. Some of us were taught that play is "wrong" and that we would get punished for it. Some of us spend out entire lives never having played once. We're taught that when we become adults that we need to act like "adults", quite often children are even taught to act like "adults". If an adult plays in public view, people will comment on the play since it's such a rare site.
Do you play regularly? Do you know how to play? Do you like to play? The good news is we all have the ability to learn how to play, it's a natural function of being alive. We all have this ability as children, we just forget it or don't practice it enough. It can definitely feel very overwhelming and terrifying at first and you may have no idea where to even start. You can do it though; you are strong and powerful! Put the screen down for a few minutes and play. Don't overthink it, just do whatever comes to mind. It will probably feel extremely awkward, just ignore that feeling. If you are afraid of being embarrassed or ashamed or of being punished just do it in secret. Go in a room close the door and give yourself the permission and freedom to play for five minutes. I promise, nothing bad will happen. The more you practice playing, the easier it will come. There is no need to worry about doing it in front of anyone, just play. Eventually you may find yourself playing around other people without even realizing it or caring.
Imagine a world where everyone played every day. Imagine how much happier we would be, imagine how much more harmonious the world would be. Play is contagious, when we see people playing and having fun, we naturally want to join in. The problem is most of us ignore that instinct due to social norms. Imagine how much less anger there would be in this world. There is a hell of a lot of rage in this world from people who have been taught that they are not allowed to play. There's no reason to be so angry all the time, just go play for a little while. Go look at kids playing on a playground, you don't see anger or rage very often on a playground, the kids are usually running around laughing and smiling as the result of play.
Go play, have some fun, enjoy life. It's ok, nothing bad will happen. You just might find yourself happy! Love and Peace!