From: The Art of Play: Helping Adults Reclaim Imagination and Spontaneity, by Adam Blatner, M.D. & Allee Blatner.
(Published by Routledge, 1997, now out of print and being revised into 3rd edition. ) Comments welcome: Email to adam@blatner.com
Chapter 15: THE SPIRIT OF PLAY
Posted, August 25, 2008 (Click here to return to table of contents.)
As mentioned in Chapter 2, a number of Western philosophers have recognized that the essence of play expresses a dynamic that pervades the cosmos. This chapter will review in a relatively superficial fashion some of the ideas associated with a more spiritual appreciation of playfulness and imagination.
The essence of spontaneity involves a freedom from the pressures and maneuvers that generate the aforementioned inhibitions to play. Indeed, playfulness is a celebration of the utilization of freedom for the production of aesthetic experience.
It helps to recognize that in addition to the physical dimensions of time, space, energy, and matter, there are also psychic dimensions of mind, relationship and aesthetics. These latter facets of reality describe the richness of the complexity and the spectrum of mind or feeling in nature.
Play overlaps with the idea of celebration, also The creative experience from this point of view has further value, or, as the Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel (1965, p.115) wrote:
"To celebrate is to contemplate the singularity of the moment and to enhance the singularity of the self. What was will not be again. The man of our time is losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating, he seeks to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state—it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or spectacle. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions."
The significance and value of play in today's world lies also beyond the practical and social benefits, and includes deeper philosophical considerations. These have relevance in their applicability to most people's lives, for a vision of meaning in recreational experiences helps to balance overly materialistic tendencies in popular culture.
Play and Individuality
We'll begin by noting that play enhances your individuality, and this is important, because the creativity that only you can bring to the moment adds to that creativity which is the universe. There is individuality throughout nature, and in even the most minute components. This is supported by the fact that science has found incredible complexity, even at the atomic level of existence. Electrons, for ex-ample, move around the nuclei of atoms trillions of times every second, and they vibrate in "spheres" or dumbbell-shaped regions of probable locations. Because of this, every atom can be different from every other atom!
A cell, composed of trillions of atoms, can likewise be recognized as necessarily unique by virtue of its complexity. Photographs taken by the electron microscope reveal patterns of membranes in the surface of cells as complex as fingerprints. Moreover, every particle in existence varies from moment to moment and from interaction to interaction. Whitehead tried to help us change our habits of thinking in terms of separate, seemingly fixed "things" by emphasizing the actual nature of existence as process, events, and constant creative change.
If individuality is a universal phenomenon, this is a fact which probably has significance. (At least that sophisticated form of play called philosophy aims at deriving meaning from facts.) Regarding individuality's implications for human life, its celebration through play may be a way to encourage us to honor the reality of each person's uniqueness. Your individuality is not only a dynamically functioning physical assemblage of some 60 trillion cells, but it is also an incredible blend of psychosocial components (Williams, 1967). Your various interests, the particulars of the imagery and music to which you resonate, your miscellaneous temperamental inclinations, strengths, weaknesses, and the many factors that contribute to your personal history, all combine to create a truly unique being (Blatner, 2005). The you of this moment is the only you that ever was and ever will be, and your individuality offers a potential for a kind of creativity that has value because of its uniqueness.
The nature of individuality might be viewed as a kind of play, because the many different types of talent, interest, temperament, and physical characteristics come together with a similarly unique blend of historical era, family makeup, regional geography, and so forth. How will this nexus—this point of many factors coming together—be able to creatively make the most of the strengths and compensate for the weaknesses and grow into an optimal actualization of his or her potential? It’s a good story, a good drama. All this expresses the broader cultural and species-wide dynamics of evolution, and it should be recognized also partaking of spiritual elements.
This creativity deserves to be expressed as much as possible, within the reasonable boundaries of necessity and social harmony. Since your official roles (as family member, worker, citizen, and such) represent only a fraction of your potential range of creative possibilities, imaginative play offers a vehicle for your exploration of many other roles and ways of being.
Dimensions of the Psyche
Another deeper meaning of play involves the significance of the richness and elusive changeability of the mind. Play functions as a vehicle for practicing something akin to an active form of meditation because it freely allows the expression of intuitive and spontaneous elements, imagery, and emotion, as well as reason. It is a way to integrate the richness of the subjective realms with the infinite varieties of interpersonal and objective experience.
Discovering the essential qualities of mental playfulness is an esoteric endeavor, in that it seeks to find subtle, almost hidden patterns of meaning and relationship in a highly complex group of phenomena. In this sense, esoteric activities encompass the processes of making theoretical constructs in many fields of study-linguistics, anthropology, communications theory, natural history, subatomic physics, astronomy, biology, etc. Psychology, too, is an esoteric discipline in its attempt to clarify the workings of that most elusive phenomenon of all, consciousness itself. This is a challenge, because the nature of mind includes the very real and pervasive activity of self-deception. (The elucidation of many of the mechanisms of self-deception is the special contribution of the dynamic depth-psychologies, especially psychoanalysis and its derivatives.)
In its broadest sense, psychoanalysis has pursued the quest for understanding beyond the therapeutic context of the understanding and treating of mental illness, to include investigations into normal and even optimal functioning. A psychodynamic approach can lend depth to the study of history, comparative religion, sociology, literature, and the other humanities. Meditation, spontaneity, and many activities can engage the nonrational dimensions and can integrate them with the whole self in the service of creativity.` Thus, what psychoanalysis has discovered is the pervasiveness of mental phenomena which not only resist definition, but actively defy it, flout it, and subtly celebrate the poetry of the wisdom and beauty embedded in transrational states of consciousness.
The vehicle of dramatic play offers a method for bringing consciousness and social validation to the forces of imagery. Among other things, play in the adult becomes free exploratory inquiry, and allows an experimentation with the desires of the flesh and heart, sublimating them into constructive expressions, yet retaining their vibrancy and excitement.
Play as Part of Evolution
Scientific evidence about the evolution of stars, planets, and life has profoundly altered the nature of philosophy in the last century. It has become apparent that the evolutionary process is as universal a phenomenon as individuality, and thus must also be woven into our growing scheme of the meaning of life. Even if there are myriads of intelligent life forms on other worlds, human beings are nevertheless unique in the way reality is created and experienced. Evolution is a form of complexification, as if the universe is playing at finding out how many ecological niches it can live in and at the same time express some new facet of aesthetic possibility.
To understand how play serves this goal, note that evolution involves differentiation, as each species develops specialized ways to adapt, which involves increasing differentiation of cells, organs, and types within a species. This is more than simply a matter of physical diversification; it demands increasingly complex ways to exchange information within the organism and with other organisms. Thus, as species evolve, there's generally an increase in the amount and variety of forms of information exchanged within each body and with the other living creatures in the environment. Sexuality was one of the first natural methods for exchanging information-in that case, information of a genetic nature.
Yet the evolution of nervous tissue, hormones, and pheromones soon increased the numbers of types of communication, both chemical and electrochemical. Not long afterwards, many other forms evolved, using the media of sounds, pressure, heat, color, gravity, light, and other barely detectable subtleties. Issues of social communication, the complex patterns of symbiosis, territoriality, mating, and group behavior all reflected forms of exchanging information.
As humanity evolved, this process took a quantum leap, because language allows for imagination and the birth of culture. The opposable thumb and upright posture needed a capacity for organization (through communication) if a toolmaker would ever be able to progress. The complexification of culture led to new forms of consciousness.' Yet the rate of change in culture still depended, for the most part, on passing along the beliefs of the elders.' Certainly, communications over any distance tended to lack the capacity for rapid feedback and adjustments. When letters were superseded by the use of the telephone, people could talk back and forth in order to clear up any misunderstandings immediately.
The social distance between teacher and student, doctor and patient, ruler and subject also was great enough in the past so that most communications were more directive (i.e., from the superior in status to the inferior), rather than mutual in character. In the last century, however, this social distance has been altered so that the processes of therapy, education, child rearing, and management are increasingly democratic. Such transformed relationships need effective skills of two-way communications. That's where sociodraratic play comes in; it promises to be a vehicle for practice in increasing the capacity of individuals to interact constructively with others in their social networks.
As a form of multileveled, high-feedback interaction, sociodramatic play acts to increase the fluid exchange of important interpersonal information. As our culture becomes more complex and in-tense, we need to communicate with more emotional warmth and sensitivity, integrating social needs along with informational con-tent (Nesbitt, 1982).
Play, as discussed in the earlier chapters, facilitates a more sophisticated form of communication, which integrates many levels of meaning. This allows for a better understanding of the many frames of reference involved in any complex situation. It also is an early channel of rapid and fluid communicative feedback. Furthermore, it operates as a natural and enjoyable way for the learning of the component skills that are most appropriate for dealing with our changing and holistic world.
What has been described is a process of evolution, not only of the biosphere, but also for the sum total of consciousness and events of informational exchange—what the scientist-philosopher Teilhard de Chardin called "the noosphere"' This growth has been accelerating at a staggering rate, a geometrical expansion. If you could picture the surface of this planet with every exchange of information being a little laser pulse of light; if you could see its growth over the last thousand years using time-lapse photography; if all else could be left dark; and if you could view it from a hundred thousand miles away in space, it might look a little like some fabulously growing, living organism-perhaps an enormously magnified "cell" or a sphere-shaped "embryo" in active development!
The point is that in our present state of accelerating change, an evolutionary perspective is a useful approach. Indeed, the very concept of evolution, as it has become widely accepted, has been itself an evolutionary step in our cultural progress. From this perspective, it's useful to look at some of the trends that are operating in contemporary society. It is our hope that as we all better understand the processes, there will be a concomitant development of skills to guide the society in constructive directions.
Creativity and the Spirit
Cultures create channels for expression, even as they structure other institutions for repression. The need for freedom, however, is irrepressible, and in American society one way it finds expression is through the arts. A playful attitude is an essential component of aesthetic creativity. These activities flourish most fully when they are free from excessive utilitarian concerns (Rader & Jessup, 1976). By reintroducing the central theme of play for everyone (and not just for the talented specialists), there is a renewed emphasis on the experience of the creative act itself, rather than what has become an overvaluing of the finished product.
It is in the exercise of an almost meditative surrender to nondirective thought that the Muses of inspiration emerge, in their own time. This creativity finds outlets in science and research of all kinds, and not just in the arts. Yet there are excellent metaphors for the kinds of freedom of imagination in play that may be discovered in the making of music, dance, poetry, and art. All of these can express the essence of spontaneity and the spirit of play.
There is play even in philosophy and theology. Humanity has used imagination above all to conceptualize its own meaning. For example, a major sect of Christianity in the second and third centuries A.D. integrated the creative dimension into the very essence of their spiritual practice.
As Elaine Pagels (1979, p.22; p.25) wrote:
"Like circles of artists today, Gnostics considered original creative invention to be the mark of anyone who becomes spiritually alive. Each one, like students of a painter or writer, expected to express his own perceptions by revising and transforming what he was taught. Whoever merely repeated his teacher's words was considered immature (or ‘uninitiated’)." and:
"The Gnostic Christians assumed that they had gone far beyond the Apostles' original teaching. Just as many people today assume that the most recent experiments in science or psychology will surpass earlier ones, so the Gnostics anticipated that the present and future would yield a continued increase in knowledge."
In the last few hundred years, philosophy and more liberal forms of theology have become more free, with a resulting flow of new, fresh ideas. More recently, many highly respected theologians and professionals in related fields of religious studies have written about the inclusion of playfulness in spiritual experience, especially the idea that there seems to be a component of "divine play" in the workings of the universe. This had been stated in other religious traditions for centuries. For example, in India, Yogis and other sages intuited the principle of Divine Play this and gave to this aspect of Divinity the Sanskrit word, “Lila,” (or “Leela”). To some extent the principle of Dionysius in the ancient Greek mystery religions also hinted at this underlying dynamic—contrasting this earthier, “moist,” feminine principle with the more cool, rational, potential. (Was it a premonition of the awareness of the need for the way some contemporary neuroscientists theorize about the balancing of right and left hemispheres of the brain?) (See additional references for this chapter.)
Co-creativity and Mind Expansion
As ecological and cross-cultural awareness grows, it is becoming more plausible and respectable to identify not simply with a local group, tribe, religion, or nation—nor even be limited to the human species—but to extend a sense of compassion, concern, and allegiance to include all life on this planet. (Well, maybe we should include extra-terrestrials, too—the theme of the movies such as E.T.) Along with the growing power to destroy the world is a growing global consciousness that recognizes the interdependence and potential for the human species to learn the wisdom of becoming the caretakers. This requires the development of a philosophy of co-creativity, a view of life that redefines the function of humanity as closer to that of cells within a great organism. As mentioned in first chapter, the process philosophy of Whitehead and Hartshorne also advocates this theory (Blatner, 1998).
The work of Teilhard de Chardin goes on to suggest some implications of this co-creative view of human nature. In his view, the most effective functioning would include a balanced mixture of individuation, cooperation, and attunement to the wholeness of things. As conscious creatures, this mode of attunement may well involve the capacity for imaginative empathy and emotional concern for the other forms of life in the world. In addition to a straightforward commitment to learn through knowledge and reason about the other components of this wholeness of which humans are a part, there is a learning that relates by using feelings and intuition. This is where role-playing becomes highly relevant.
Through exercising imagination about other people and things, through wondering what it's like to be, to experience from another's point of view, you extend your consciousness into an expanding sphere of participation. As mentioned in Chapters 1, 4 and 12, this includes many dimensions of experience-other cultures, various life forms, even inanimate forces in nature. The integration of science fiction and fantasy into the mainstream of modern literature has made it easier to engage in free flights of the mind. Thus, role-playing may be as useful a vehicle in a holistic quest for enlightenment as meditation. Indeed, imaginative and empathic contemplation may reflect the West's active, social, and progress-oriented approach, which balances with the traditional values implicit in many of the beliefs of the East.
Play as the Essence of Freedom
The theme of essential freedom has been a key concept throughout this chapter because it is one of the fundamental archetypal issues. The need in human beings for a deep experience of freedom must not be underestimated. Play offers an approach to this experience. As such, play must itself become free of any need to justify itself as therapy, education, personal development, art, or anything else constructive. In a way, it serves all these functions, as well as embodying some of the major implications of research in applied social psychology, child development, socio-biology, and contemporary spirituality. Furthermore, it essentially exists outside of any categorization.
Play should be recognized as an important, existentially valid human activity. What's more, it is a state of mind before it ever manifests into an activity. In play you don't need to be creative or spontaneous; you don't have to do it well; you don't have to know what or why you're doing something; and, as will be commented on in the next chapter, you can feel free to do "nothing."
The reclamation of childlike innocence is an act of engaging in a process suggested by many great spiritual teachers. The idea of "be-coming like little children" is not a matter of following hidden rules of reward and punishment, but rather refers to a psychospiritual involvement in attuning to the essence of the transformative process. As adults reenter the realm of dramatic play through the use of spontaneity and imagination, there is a renewed participation in the wholeness of the planet and the universe.
References
Blatner, A. (1998). Why process thought is relevant: a psychiatrist's perspective. Retrieved from: http://www.blatner.com/adam/level2/processthought.html
Blatner, A. (2005). Discovering and developing your individuality. Retrieved from website: http://www.blatner.com/adam/psyntbk/individuality.html
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. (1965). Who is man? Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. (pp. 115-118).
Jaynes, Julian. (1976). The origins of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Mead, Margaret. (1970). Culture and commitment. Garden City, NY: Natural History Press/Doubleday & Co.
Nesbitt, James. (1982). Megatrends. New York: Warner Books, 1982, Chapter 3.
Pagels, Elaine (1979). The gnostic gospels. New York: Random House.
Rader, M., & Jessup, B. (1976). Art and human values. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (pp. 340-346).
Teilhard de Chardin, P. (1964). The future of man. New York: Harper & Row. (pp. 155-184).
Wilber, Ken. (1983). A sociable god: A brief introduction to a transcendental sociology. New York: McGraw-Hill / New Press.
Williams, Roger John. (1967). You are extraordinary. New York: Random House.
Further References on the Spirit of Play:
Barrager, P. Spiritual understanding through creative drama. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1981.
Cox, H. The feast of fools. New York: Harper/Colophon, 1969.
DeSola, C. The spirit moves: A handbook of dance and prayer Washington, DC: The Liturgical Conference, 1977.
Johari, H. Leela: The game of self-knowledge. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1975.
Kinsley, D. R. The divine player: A study of Krishna Leela. Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979.
McLelland, J. The clown and the crocodile. Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1970.
Miller, D. L. Gods and games: Toward a theology of play. Cleve-land: World Publishers, 1970.
Moltman, J. Theology of play. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Neale, R. E. In praise of play: Toward a psychology of religion. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.
Perry, W. (Ed.). A treasury of traditional wisdom. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1971, pp. 33-36.
Rahner, H. Man at play. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972.
Watts, A. (1964). Chapter 2: Is it serious? In: Beyond theology: The art of godmanship. New York: Random House/Vintage.