"The Opposite of Play Is Not Work. It's Depression."
Eight Play Personalities and Why they Matter
“What I “discovered” was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Play as an Essential Component of the Good Life
When I searched for images of “play,” I found tons of photos of children, and not one image of adults meaningfully engaged in a flow state.
But play, of course, is not just for children. Play helps us prefrontal cortex-heavy human beings continue to grow throughout our adult lives.
As we will see, “play” takes many forms. But some broad characteristics of play provide a working definition:
[] We engage in play for it’s own sake.
[] We enjoy play.
[] We would continue playing, if we could.
[] Play might alter our normal perceptions of self and time.
At work, a sense of play nourishes us as we go along — and can help us innovate new processes. Play fosters human connections, generates new neural networks. Play helps us imagine new ways of being with ourselves, our peers, and our worlds.
Play can also help us reset, relax, and re-calibrate. Play can help us re-create.
In the context of life design, play can help us tap into new potential futures.
So serious play is serious business, with clear benefits to our professional and personal lives — and even clearer benefits to our mental health. “The opposite of play isn’t work,” Stuart Brown writes, “it’s depression.”
Brown’s “Eight Play Personalities”
Stuart Brown, M.D., is the director of the National Institute for Play. He has taken the “play histories” of over 6000 people, and in so doing, he’s noticed eight general archetypes, or personalities, of play.
Hopefully they clarify new ways for us to lean into our natures, our lives and our works.
Before you read them, though, it might be fun to stop and reflect: How do you play? How do you integrate play into your work? As a child, how did you play? What games did you like most? If you’re able, you might interview your parents and ask the same questions: how did we play when we were kids?
I hope the a brief tour of the eight play personalities gives us new ways of integrating play into our current relationships and deliberate practices. As you read the following, you might consider how much the short descriptions seem like you… or which ones you might like to play with.
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1. Explorers
We love adventures and expeditions. Our journeys might be physical, emotional, and/or mental. We explorers have an enthusiasm for discovery: for new points of view, new relationships, and or new experiences.
2. Competitors
We play to win, and we love it. We need to know the rules, and we have a lot of fun keeping score and rising to the top of other competitors on the field. We play games that can be social or solitary in nature… but we competitors love to compete.
3. Directors
We like to orchestrate and execute complex situations and events. Throwing parties, organizing meetings, we love the power and the thrill of putting people and things into places that makes something great.
4. Collectors
We love to assemble and gather things or experiences. We find what is interesting about coins, cards, or vacation spots. We develop excellent taste, and may or may not have a showroom, cabinet of curiosities, or well-stocked shelves.
5. Artists / Creators
We find joy in making things, in creating something where there wasn’t something before. These creations may be functional or funky, architectural or ephemeral. Wood-working, music-making, and gardening included.
6. Jokers
Some people call us space-cowboys. Some call us gangsters of love. We have been revered in history as tricksters, noble fools, and powerful truth-tellers. We might be accused of being nonsensical, but we know how powerful nonsense can be.
7. Athletes / Dancers
We are at our best when we’re moving and engaging our physical body. We might like playing physical games, but for us, the joy isn’t really in the winning — it’s the feeling of dynamic embodiment. We move to think.
8. Story Tellers
We cherish the imagination, and partake in narrative arcs than most. We can find elements of plot and character where others do not, and have the power to transform the mundane with imaginative flights of fancy.
Do you have a mode of play that’s not listed above? I’d love to hear from you!
Big thanks to Stuart Brown, M.D., and his marvelous book Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (Penguin, 2009).