Imagination Transforms Everything by Andrea Kasprzak

Imagination Transforms Everything by Andrea Kasprzak

Author:Andrea Kasprzak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2019-05-13T16:00:00+00:00


What Does It Mean to Play?

The concept of play remains rather tricky to define, even for psychologists and researchers who study it for a living.

For some people, play might mean being in the flow, that ecstatic absorption in one’s current task. For others it might be the activities they engage in with their children. Or maybe it’s more structured, like a game of soccer after work.

“There could be various definitions of play,” explains Eugene V. Subbotsky, who works in the psychology department at Lancaster University. Subbotsky studies magical thinking and social intelligence in children. “The one that I like the most defines play as motivated activity that employs symbolic structures.” Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College, says, “Play is an imaginative, nonliteral activity with rules that are not dictated by physical necessity but emanate from the minds of the players.”

Most would agree that play in its truest sense involves engagement in an activity with the intent of pure enjoyment rather than serious pursuit. In this type of play, there are no winners or losers. Inhibitions and expectations cease to exist. True play is transcendence, a communion between the spirit and the senses. We can access this state by ourselves or, if we’re lucky, invite others to join in.

“If we play, more transformations will take place,” said Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, in a presentation at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “Play plus science results in transformation. We are all designed to play, not only as children, but throughout our lives.”

Most people probably haven’t played in such a way since they were small. What’s the point, they may ask themselves.

And worse, if they did play, what would other people think?

We live in a society where it is more socially acceptable for adults to drink themselves into oblivion than to openly act in a playful manner. If grown-ups are silly, we call them stupid. We think they’re dumb. Although the majority of us admire the way children play and freely imagine, we may still struggle to accept adults whose beliefs or behaviors force us to consider seemingly unfathomable realities.

“Although it’s been proven that the creative process—what we would consider to be true innovation—benefits greatly from unstructured play, there aren’t many places in our world where people can let go in such a way that is free of stigma,” says Lynn A. Barnett-Morris, a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “The best example of such a place is probably an improv stage. But can you imagine what would happen if our world were set up to invite and encourage play among adults?”

One such place that does exist is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab. Here, more than two hundred graduate students from the fields of art, engineering, biology, physics, and coding cohabit in a state of intellectual madness. In this visionary cocoon removed from the world, no idea is too crazy to be considered. In fact, the crazier the idea, the better. Toy artists work side by side with musical instrument designers.



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