Chapter 27: Playing Again

When was the last time you did something for no reason?

Not for exercise. Not for networking. Not for self-improvement or content or personal brand or any other framework that turns activity into productivity. Just for the pleasure of doing it. Because it was fun. Because you felt like it. Because you were curious what would happen.

If you can't remember, you're in good company. Most adults between 35 and 55 have quietly, without noticing, stopped playing.

Play, in the research definition, has specific characteristics. It's voluntary. It's naturally motivated. It's pleasurable. And participants often lose track of time while engaged in it. That last part should make your ears perk up at this point in the book. Losing track of time is the prospective signature of flow, and flow, as we've established, is one of the richest producers of thick time.

Studies on adult playfulness show that playful individuals report lower perceived stress, engage in more effective coping, show higher creativity, and demonstrate greater psychological wellbeing. Play isn't a reward you earn after the serious work is done. It's a cognitive state that makes the serious work better.

But there's a permission problem. Somewhere around thirty, most people internalise the belief that play is childish. That unstructured, goalless activity is a waste of time. That every hour should be optimised. The cultural message is clear: adults produce. Children play.

This belief is both wrong and expensive. Because when you remove play from your life, you remove one of the most natural paths to the flow states that produce thick time. You replace it with structured activity that might be productive but is rarely absorbing in the same way. And the absence compounds: without play, dopamine stimulation decreases, novelty decreases, creative thinking decreases, and the days get a little thinner.

What counts as play? The definition is personal, but there are common threads. Building something with no client. Making music with no audience. Kicking a ball with no score. Drawing with no portfolio. Cooking with no recipe. Tinkering with something mechanical for the satisfaction of understanding how it works. Playing a game, an actual game, with friends or family, where the only point is the game itself.

The distinction between play and hobby is important. Hobbies can be playful, but they can also become another form of productivity. The moment you start optimising your hobby, tracking your progress, comparing yourself to others, or feeling guilty about not doing it enough, it's stopped being play. Play is defined by the absence of external goals. It's process, not product.

For parents, the easiest play reentry is through your children. Not supervising their play. Joining it. Getting on the floor. Building the thing. Playing the game. Being silly without self-consciousness. Children are masters of play, and they're remarkably good at pulling adults back into it if the adult is willing.

For people without children nearby, the entry point might be different. Sports that are social rather than competitive. Creative activities pursued without an audience. Exploration of physical spaces with no destination. Games, whether board games, card games, or video games, played for the experience rather than the achievement.

The protocol, if a protocol doesn't kill it, is to protect two hours per week for genuine, goalless activity. Not scheduled rigidly. But carved out, protected from encroachment, and defended against the voice that says you should be doing something useful.

Two hours. Unstructured. No outcome required.

If that sounds indulgent, consider what you're buying. Two hours of play per week is roughly 100 hours per year of rich, absorbing, flow-prone experience that your brain encodes distinctly because it's pleasurable, voluntary, and different from the routine. It's 100 hours of thick time that costs nothing, produces joy, and might be the most natural antidote to temporal compression available.

When I was twenty-five, I played constantly without thinking about it. Music, sports, tinkering, exploring. It was just what I did in the spaces between work. At forty-seven, I have to consciously create those spaces and consciously give myself permission to use them. That's a strange thing to have to learn, permission to enjoy yourself. But it's where a lot of us end up.

The instruments in my house aren't obligations. They're invitations. The question isn't whether I should have fewer interests. It's whether I can engage with them as play rather than as projects.

Pick something up. Put the score down. See what happens.