Play is creativity in motion
Recently, I heard Play referred to as ‘the universal language of childhood’.
This resonated with me deeply, as if my body somehow knew it to be true. This also made me wonder, as adults, when do we stop speaking this language, and for the most part, forget we even know how?
Play stimulates creativity, develops and strengthens our imaginations, supports self-expression and in doing so, nurtures free thinking. Perhaps most importantly though, Play bypasses the inner critic, freeing us to act without censorship, removing the filters that squash and suppress creativity.
As adults, we typically live in our heads, often becoming stuck there. Our instinct to intellectualise, analyse, rationalise, and overthink, limits our ability to access and express our creativity freely.
Children on the other hand live in their bodies, and able to express their creativity fully, freely and authentically.
It’s not that children are more creative than adults, it’s that children are more willing to embrace the behaviours that unlock creativity; chief among them, play.
Through play, children instinctively and intuitively embody their creativity.
Consequently, the more they play, the more freely they connect to their creativity, and the more fully they continue to express it.
Play is creativity in motion.
When we become fully absorbed in play, something shifts. We stop observing the experience from the outside and become part of it, from inside it. We lose track of time, self-consciousness falls away and our creativity begins to flow freely. In this way, play offers a felt sense of connection to our creativity, and a oneness with our creative self. In creative terms, we call this flow. And flow is the optimum state of creativity.
Of course, as adults we love to see children play. In fact, we tend to take children’s play, as we do with most things, very seriously indeed. By contrast, children play for one reason, because it’s fun. Sure, they might take the act of play seriously but their inclination and desire to play is for no other reason than for plays sake. There is no greater purpose, no bigger agenda, no strategic motivation, unless of course it’s part of the play itself, the act of play is simply its own reward. As adults we recognise and actively encourage this, placing tremendous value on it.
Providing the participants of that play are our children, never ourselves. Then play becomes whimsical silliness at best, a complete waste of time at worst, and not given a second thought, most of the time in-between. Leaving us grown ups to go back to the very serious business of living in our heads.
Arguably this is perfectly acceptable adult behaviour.
Except that is, if we’re craving more creativity in our lives. Then, we might want to reconsider our relationship with play, and our willingness to practice it.
Because if we want to think, feel and be more creative, embracing play is one of the most effective ways we can unlock our untapped creativity and start using it.
So, the next question becomes, how as adults do we do it?
One simple way, is to remember how we used to play.
Try to think back to how you used to play when you were a child. And if you can’t remember, or if your childhood was not filled with play, try to engage your imagination, and think about how you might have liked to.
My forms of play, like most children’s , varied wildly, and I’ll be honest, a little weirdly too. I put on shows, constantly. I made things; arts, crafts, mud poos (don’t ask). I wrote poems and stories – all of which I would turn into yet another show. The light switches in our bedrooms were not actually light switches but telephones that my two sisters and I would flick up and down and then speak into, like strange little microphones facilitating a three-way conversation across the landing. The roundabout at the end of my road was not really a roundabout, but a glorious spaceship, the tree in the middle was yet another phone, looking back I seem to have been weirdly obsessed with telecommunications.
Welcome to my very peculiar but very playful world; age 8.
Even just remembering some of the ways I used to Play, evokes a surge of playful energy, a sense of silliness, even joy. By simply remembering how we played, is often the simplest way of transporting ourselves back into that very state.
Remembering how we used to play is one route back to it. Another is understanding what makes play possible in the first place.
When we strip play back to its essence, certain conditions consistently appear. Conditions that allow us to lose ourselves in the experience and access that state of creative flow.
I call these The Five Principles of Play.
Suspend Disbelief - We must be willing to temporarily untether ourselves from the constraints of reality and allow our imaginations to roam freely wherever they may choose.
Go with it - We must not block the natural flow of play, obstructing, challenging and controlling that natural flow but instead allow ourselves to be carried away with it.
Experience over Outcome - We must be in it for the experience without trying to manufacture the results. This can be difficult for us adults. The more we commit to the experience of play, and really experiencing that experience the more we’ll lose ourselves within it.
Embrace the mess - We must learn to enthusiastically, unapologetically embrace the mess, recognising its a crucial part of play. Play isn’t about perfection, it’s about relinquishing control and being open, adaptable and in favour of whatever might present itself next, however messy and inconvenient it might be.
Don’t Give a Damn - Finally we must avoid judgement, judgment of ourselves and of anyone else. It only leads to insecurity, quickly followed by self-censorship which means we’re no longer expressing ourselves freely. Caring too much about what we look like, who might be watching, what they might be thinking, keeps us in our heads, diluting Play, until there’s nothing left of it.
These five principles can be a helpful way of reminding ourselves what it means to play. Understanding them, means we can actively and intentionally use these principles as attitudes we adopt and approaches we deliberately apply.
In other words, by embracing these principles, play can be what we do, how we do it, and the spirit with which we do it. That’s when Play has the power to reconnect us to our creativity, set it in motion, and then ultimately, set it free.
Perhaps then, it’s time to remember this long forgotten language of childhood.
And perhaps even more importantly, remember that we do still know how to speak it.