06 Feb 2014
Starter: In every real man, a child is hidden who wants to play.
Play Time
“Play ball” says the umpire to start a baseball game. “Let’s put on a play!” says Mickey Rooney to Judy Garland. “The play’s the thing” said Shakespeare. Playmates and Playboys, play things, play the field, play around, play time, play date, play-by-play, play the piano, play on, play off , pla-dough and Plato – there is both philosophy and reality in play. Can you be serious and play? Can you seriously play? If you play are you wasting your time? Is time best used in play?
Is it time that determines whether a man has the right to play? As in age? A young boy is expected to play but there comes a point when he is expected to be serious and get down to business, whether it be learning or establishing a career or working harder or being dedicated. “Stop playing around” you are admonished. Even team sports are supposed to prepare you for being a corporate team player. And so it goes as you are expected to rise, advance, do important things, be important. Go beyond the playing of childhood to being a man of adulthood. And so play is suppressed or suspect.
If a man spends time with sport it has to be competitive or conducive to keeping him strong or building contacts. You cant just hang out with the guys and do silly stuff. A real man has to be serious. Having fun, the object of play, can be had, but it must be the right kind of fun for a serious guy. Does it give you more knowledge, or train your mind such as doing crosswords or going to the theatre to “see” a play or to the symphony to “hear” music being played.
Even if you are a player of sport or of music or of theater, you must work at your craft. Are you playing if it is your profession? No you must be serious at your work as with all other professions, improving, moving up, becoming better known, making more money in whatever sport or theater league is your playing profession. You cant just do it for fun even though children can play those same games and music too.
And so it goes if you are to be a real man, a serious man. What is natural and fun and joy giving is often lost in the expectations placed on you by parents and pedagogues and professions. Make the best of your time, pursue your bucket list, dont just sit around, keep moving forward is the mantra.
But then, ultimately, it is time that also allows a change in perspective though many never experience it. Some reach mature age with agendas and 50 places to see before I die and fight to stay ever young by staying the same. Fun still must be coupled with accomplishment not for the purity of the fun itself.
My father was the epitome of a serious man, hard working, responsible, straightforward, out of the depression generation in the US. Only in the most dire of medical problems would he deign to miss a day of work. Weekends were for work around the house. Yes there were parties and dinners but there was no play for its own sake. That is, until he retired. It was if all the years of seriousness had created a bank account of play that now overflowed. He traveled, though still with agenda’s to cover. However, he found joy in the new and fun in the journey. He sought out people from his past from around the country and went back to spend time with them almost in a fashion to pay back the play debts he had accrued during his long working life.
The most unusual change of his life from being a serious man to a play-full man was his reaction to children and not just to his own grandchildren. The older he became, the more likely he was to sit in the middle of the floor with a child who barely was able to speak and play the child’s game with him. Put the blocks upon one another and then they fall down and you laugh hard…and start over again. He never tired as long as the child laughed and squealed and wanted to start over.
Even more different from his serious working adult persona, as he grew older he grew more willing to be silly, to wear a silly hat, make a silly face, be willing to play silly games. In effect he became more childlike in his ability to play. And play was the thing, an end unto itself.
Perhaps because I am my father’s son, I have also had to overcome the idea of play being a waste of time. And a serious man could never waste time. The thought of being silly was even further out of mind. Of course, there was fun in watching sports, reading, cooking but they were by products of the activity not the objective of activity.
As I retired and had time to spare, time to enjoy life, time to have fun I have moved away from the serious side but perhaps not as much as my father. It is still hard to be silly. How can a real man be silly. But then if the plays the thing, who cares about the image? It is the result of enjoyment and pleasure and happiness and purity of finding the essence of life. And in the end, we do all go out as we came, much like a child, finding pure pleasure in fun and laughter and simplicity. So I have time yet to be silly and a child again and go out in play.