https://petergray.substack.com/p/24-when-work-is-play
"Dear friends,
One of the first and most often reinforced lessons children learn in school is
that work and play are opposites. Work is what one must do; play is what one
wants to do. Work is burdensome; play is fun. Work is essential; play is
trivial. But when we leave school and go on to the "real world," at least some
of us, the lucky ones, discover that work is not the opposite of play. In fact,
work can be play, or at least it can be imbued with a high degree of
playfulness.
When work is play, it is humanizing. It brings out our best qualities and makes
us feel good. When work is toil—the opposite of play—it can be dehumanizing.
We become beasts of burden, whether the burdens are borne mostly by our muscles
or our minds.
What are the qualities that can make our work play rather than toil?
This is my first letter in a brief series (of at least two, maybe three)
devoted to the idea that what we call work can be play, or it can be the
opposite of play (which I will call toil). This letter is a slightly revised
version of an essay I first published in my
Psychology Today blog (here). My
focus is on the definition of play and how gainful employment can fall within
that definition."
Via
What Could Go Right? December 7, 2023:
https://theprogressnetwork.org/homelessness-2023/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
