Taking a break for play
It seems only too relevant that I’m writing about playfulness after taking a break from content creation to focus a little more on play over the past month, including Dani’s 10th birthday, a miniature festival at home to celebrate avocado season, and a few interesting and slightly challenging books. But, in all honesty, my time away from this project hasn’t just been play. I’ve also been caught up again with work pressure, trying to do what’s right by colleagues, my employer, and clients as I prepare to wind down at the end of the year.
This post, similar to the previous posts in the series, is comprised of a few different threads: the origins and history of play and its marginalisation, my own experience and shifting values, and what it means for our future.
Do you ever feel nervous or embarrassed about the idea that you could be seen as too immature or childish for doing something you just have a natural urge to do? I’m talking about being playful, dancing spontaneously, calling out, or somehow engaging with our willingness to do something we didn’t need to do and that had no specific purpose. That’s what we mean by play. Not necessarily structured play with rules, but joking, teasing, clowning around, moving our bodies, discovering things through fun and impulsiveness.
It’s hard to believe, given how much shame there can be around those behaviours, that play could be healthy and natural. Yet, as far as we can tell from anthropological and psychological research, playfulness is not only a natural instinct, but really essential to developing meaning and is one of the most effective ways to learn.
Learning through play
The idea that work has to come first and that play is for children is a relatively modern invention in human history. Yet we grow up with the indoctrination that play is something that has to be earned by first doing our chores or our work. In my life that has been, and at times continues to be, a source of conflict and displeasure.
Historically, before formal schooling, play was an essential way that children built skills and created bonds. Through failure and adaptation, where there isn’t strict monitoring or well-defined rules, they could build resilience with the support of their peers, same age or different age. Research over the past several decades, usually outside the mainstream, has uncovered that children learn best through self-directed play. I’ve written before about the book by Peter Gray, Free to Learn, if you would like to dive a bit more into how that works for children.
For adults, and the history of work and play, the book Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time, by James Suzman, delves deeper into the origin story. It’s worth knowing that even in medieval Europe, where life was pretty hard for the majority who were peasants, there were between 100 and 200 festival days a year to celebrate harvests, saints, and changes of season. So, even while they worked hard, they spent up to half the days of the year playing, dancing, and singing. Much of the work they did was done together, which also blurred the line between work and play.
Foragers and meaning
This brings us back to early forager societies. Many of them, including some that still exist, don’t have and have never had a word for “work.” They essentially do what they need to do to survive, and many of the activities they do are the same things that people now do as leisure: hunting and hiking, canoeing, camping. So many things that we do to escape modern life and wage labour were just a natural part of their existence.
There is strong suggestion that for the majority of forager societies in their chosen climate settings, they didn’t have to do much of this “work,” as we now call it, to survive. Estimates range from 15 to 20 hours a week. We might see some of those cultures, and I know that in Australia there’s still a real judgement of Indigenous cultures as being lazy or lacking motivation, when in reality those were stable cultures for tens of thousands of years. They understood what was necessary and what wasn’t necessary.
I don’t mean to romanticise what I’m sure was significant hardship at times, and we know the high rates of infant mortality in the absence of modern medicine. However, many native peoples have been considered the original affluent society, in part because they had a balance. The work they did was with friends and family and was directly related to their existence, so it was easy to see how they could find meaning in their lives.
Medieval rhythms to factory time
One of the greatest disruptions to even that balance, if we fast-forward to medieval Europe again, was the Industrial Revolution. It’s not a surprise that those who owned factories and capital at that time had significant influence on the development of an ethos that would supply a steady source of constant labour. While it might sound conspiratorial, there is plenty of historical evidence to support the view that the commons across Europe and North America were enclosed in large part to push peasants to work for their living.
People could no longer take from the forest or the stream enough for their subsistence and would instead travel to the cities, or educate their children to travel to the cities, so that they could work in factories for a wage that would allow them to purchase their essential needs that were previously, in large part, supplied by the commons. At the same time, work was reframed as both a religious and a moral duty, and there were acts passed to shut down the majority of festivals that were taking place, leaving in many cases just Sunday as the only day that remained safe as a holiday.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the story has been much the same, only broader.
Colonialism, globalisation, and cash crops
As colonialism and then globalisation pushed the same model across the world, even now in the name of development we see subsistence farmers being pushed to raise cash crops or to move into more urban areas and take on roles to support the economy and raise GDP. Their small holdings tend to get folded together. The Green Revolution means they must purchase seeds for their crops and chemicals to grow those seeds as effectively as possible.
In many cases their ability to support themselves has diminished completely, and there is an epidemic of suicide across some places, India in particular, where farmers have found themselves in a debt trap after believing tales about the productivity of seeds and chemicals, leaving them indebted to seed and chemical companies. It’s horrific.
But it’s not to say that things are necessarily much better in more developed economies where this model has been in place already for hundreds of years. The growth imperative that is prolific and assumed absolutely necessary, and that our economic model depends on courtesy of interest on debt, ensures that we have a requirement for constant work and constant consumption.
Growth and consumerism
This is the product of deliberate development of consumerism since at least the 1930s, which we spoke about previously in the acquisitiveness post. If people worked only enough to meet their needs, and identified clearly what their needs were, the whole system would fall apart. A prospect simultaneously terrifying yet alluring, given the harm being caused by the status quo. Imagine if the essential workers, as during COVID, were the only ones who really went to work, and those roles were shared among others. That people bought just what they needed and shared freely. There would be immense under employment. Or put another way, profound free time. People would have so much time to think about what is actually important to them, to find opportunities to play again, to discover and learn, to do the things that come naturally to them and that they are motivated to do.
Yet we can’t do that, because we have all taken on lifestyles and debt that require constant fuelling and refuelling. We have property owners putting pressure on real estate pricing, both to buy and to rent. And the situation we’re in keeps us going back to doing the work that is really for the benefit of the employer far more than the employee. For the majority of people, the work that they do feels almost entirely unfulfilling and unnecessary. I’m not just speculating on this. Many surveys have supported it. The modern consumer economy is a perpetuation of the shift of effort from those on the bottom to those on the top.
Shame, judgement, and opting out
Consider your own perspective on the unemployed, or even people who decide to take extended time off. People who continue to live at home with their parents, or couch surf, or live in a van. There is a real cultural distaste for such choices and harsh labels for them. We think of these people as bludgers or slackers, whether they are depending on welfare or not. We feel as though there is a moral duty to contribute to society. These are made-up ideas that are part of our embedded model of what makes a good human. They go a long way to explain the shame that we feel around taking time for ourselves or doing the things we feel compelled to do, whether that’s in a given moment or with our lives.
Art. When we think of great art and film and music, we are moved and inspired by it. Inherently, we know that those creative works are an essential part of being human and enjoying life. Yet if the people near us opt out of work to focus on a creative hobby or an interest of theirs, generally we worry for them. We lean toward greater value for scientific, technical, medical, and professional endeavours, or the trades.
School, trades, and status
Emelie knows through her work as a teacher that even students who want to work in trades, which maybe are a little more playful or less “serious,” face judgement from their parents and peers and from the school system itself. The message is that the only right path is continued academic and serious engagement in professional life. It’s sad.
My story is very similar. As I grew up, I didn’t see a lot of my father. He had the same values passed down from his parents and farmers: work had to come first and it was a duty to your family to work hard and save and do what you can. It was very future-focused and, generally, he worked himself to exhaustion so that the only time he was at home he was asleep, or at least resting.
Vowing to do it differently
When we did have holidays, we did have some play. We played Uno, or had a little run around on the beach. More often than not, holidays, especially time away, were a time for him to be sick because he had no time to be sick during the rest of the work year. Even in those situations he really needed the rest. He was exhausted. I really didn’t get to know him until I encouraged him to be frivolous and we rode across Australia in 2008 together.
From my childhood I committed that my work ethic would be different. I committed to working a maximum of four days a week and ensuring that the other, free day would be for self-development, for community or charity projects, and for playfulness.
Unfortunately, in reality the idea of time off still became productive tasks. I didn’t feel I deserved to just muck around. In large part that was because of these embedded value systems and the models I’ve spoken about before. I saw my value as being governed by how productive I was, how much I could create or produce.
Escaping into games
Even the community-related activities, even this project, are in part driven by my motivation to provide value to society. That’s not to say that I didn’t play. Through late school, university, and early parenthood, I played computer games. It was an escape, an avoidance of commitment or reality, a reward to myself, and often at the compromise of sleep or meaningful engagement with Emelie and then with my young kids. It was work, work, work, fulfil minimal domestic duties, play games, sleep too little, and get back to work.
Which was really much the same pattern as my father, just on a different time scale.
But there was something about Emelie when I first saw her at university that was really appealing. She herself was incredibly playful. In fact, I thought she was a child on a school expedition or some sort of early university project. She dressed in a really fun fashion, including at times barefoot around the university. She would skip around, flapping her arms. She’s a joker and almost always cheery and playful in nature. Those are the things that I found particularly endearing.
Resentment, shame, and a turning point
Unfortunately, over time that clash in values, between her playfulness and her strongly held belief that life is for play and for joy, and my embedded values around ensuring that work was done before play, became sharper. The reality was that the work was never done. I developed resentment over time for that, and she developed shame.
I was confident and righteous about my values. That was, in large part, a contributing factor to rising conflict between us that eventually took us to therapy. What came out of that was a commitment on my part to better understand where my values came from, and to see if I could understand and adopt some of Emelie’s, which included the ability to play, to put aside some of the responsibilities, which we’ve got to admit are never fulfilled, so we can’t wait until they’re completed before making time for play.
Soon after that I read the book Work by Suzman and really came to understand that the value I had placed in work was not necessarily inherently true or right or good, but very much a cultural factor. That was quite liberating.
Relearning play
The idea that play is, in fact, really important and helpful, and many times the right way to go about things, made sense. Even in a work setting, being playful helps to encourage creativity, problem-solving, and team-building, all the things that make us more productive anyway. That helped me to better understand and fully appreciate Emelie again.
We think we know what we’re on about and what we like about other people, but the reality was that over time the things I had liked most about Emelie were the things that were giving me the most grief. The reminder of how right she was, in some ways, to behave the way she was behaving, was both humbling and exhilarating.
So life now is somewhat more balanced. We have a greater degree of harmony around how much play, what play, and when. It’s easier to come to an agreement on what work really needs to be done, and that there will always be time for play, whether the work is done or not.
Being present with the kids
It has also allowed me to engage far more meaningfully with my kids. We have played games together for a while, but often in the past it almost felt a little forced or formal, the time that we had. Instead, now I can join them in the world that they’re in. I can feel, at times, unhurried. I can be properly present.
The idea that was prompted by The Art of Frugal Hedonism, about celebrating natural event, together with this reminder from Suzman about medieval festivals, inspired Emelie to host an Avocado Festival at home. Because why wouldn’t you celebrate this beautiful, buttery fruit?
We had a handful of people around from different parts of our lives and we ate a lot of avocado in many different ways, hung out, and enjoyed life. We celebrated the abundance that we have at the moment, which is what those celebrations have always been about: recognising abundance.
Small rituals and seasons
Imagine the importance of a birthday at a time in history where half of all children died before they were 15. It wasn’t necessarily a celebration for the child; it was a celebration for the whole community that they had gone through another year.
Now we’re imagining what other opportunities we can have for little festivals or ongoing rituals. I’m sure that we’ll have another Avocado Festival sometime, but it’s almost October and mulberries will be ready soon. Who wouldn’t enjoy going together with friends to pick this beautiful, if slightly messy, fruit?
So what does it mean next? Play is really important for developing adaptability, empathy, and resilience. All these things are essential to the Living More with Less ethos.
Looking ahead
The time that Adam and Dani will have out of school is not something to worry too much about either. As I shared in that previous post, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to play and to engage in constructive activities in their own way.
Living with less, as we’ve chosen to do, gives us the time and the energy for play. I’m tempted to see how much play we can fit into life and still feel as though we’re contributing fairly in the ways that we can.
We want to continue to find different rituals and festivals that are free or effectively free, that can be joyful and meaningful alternatives to participating in a consumer culture where every activity is commodified.
Some suggestions we could take forward: deliberately adding blank periods to our calendar for spending time with people, maybe with a list of activities to pick from. We have started already putting up posters at home around the harvest periods for fruits that we know we can find around the neighbourhood.
It’s also worth identifying the free third places, a place that’s not home or work, and not necessarily a commercial venue. Parks and libraries, the path along the bikeway, community halls. We’re not religious, but also church venues and sporting venues.
And the other social activities that are not commodified: shared dinners, repair activities, music or chanting circles, board-game gatherings, or role-playing games. These are things we’ve participated in to some extent already. Many of these communities are already on a similar path to breaking away from the over-commercialised and high-pressure model we’ve otherwise defaulted to.
Conclusion
Play is not an indulgence, it is part of what makes us human. For most of history, communities have known this. They made time for feast days, rituals, and moments of joy even in the midst of hard lives. We’ve inherited a culture that tells us work must always come first, that rest or fun must be earned, and that opting out is shameful. Yet when we look at forager societies, medieval Europe, or even our own childhood memories, we can see another story. One where play is central to learning, to resilience, and to connection.
For me, unlearning the idea that value comes only from output has been difficult. It has meant recognising how much of my life was shaped by the work ethic I inherited, and how much I had overlooked in Emelie’s natural joy. It has meant confronting the reality that play isn’t what you do when the work is done, because the work is never done. It’s what you do because life is here, now, and it deserves to be lived.
Play gives us space to be present with our children, to strengthen our relationships, and to discover meaning outside of endless productivity. It helps us build the adaptability, empathy, and courage that we need to live more lightly and joyfully. That is why it belongs at the centre of Living More with Less.
An Invitation
If this resonates, try making play a more deliberate part of your life. Mark a blank space in your calendar and defend it. Follow your children’s curiosity, or your own, for a day. Gather a few friends and celebrate something seasonal: fruit, a cool change, a full moon. Seek out the free places in your community: a library, a park, a hall.
Most importantly, notice how it feels. Does it leave you lighter? More connected? More alive?
Work less.
Play more.
Live more.