Play and Survival in Turbulent Times

I found the following perhaps painfully relevant insights about play and survival in "In Praise of Play," Virginia Postrel's Bradley Lecture delivered at the American Enterprise Institute in 1999

"Playfulness is ... a vital adaptation to a dynamic world. That, indeed, appears to be why we play: The psychic rewards we get from solving problems and satisfying our curiosity make the human species more likely to survive in turbulent, or wildly divergent, environments.

"The evolutionary advantage of play seems to be that it fosters resilience. One possibility is that play allows an individual to accumulate lots of different experiences on which to draw when faced with a challenge. It makes more possible solutions familiar. An animal that played as a child will therefore be more adaptable as an adult.

"Animal play fits this explanation: Many animals play, but playfulness and curiosity are generally characteristics of the young, fading with maturity. Even chimpanzees are far less inventive as adults than as juveniles. In a stable environment, in which all necessary skills can be mastered during childhood, adults do not need to play in order to survive.

"Human beings, however, play all our lives, and adults do most of the inventing. For a human being not to be creative and curious is a sign of senility, not maturity. This playfulness gives humans an evolutionary advantage: An adult who continues to play will be more adaptable still, able to draw not only on old experiences but on the desire for new ones.

"This drive to discover new things is what the Silicon Valley entrepreneur means when he calls his work 'an adventure game' -- a world where surprises abound, where 'players' thrive on 'knowing that just around the corner is something new that you're going to have to learn and to react to.' The spirit of play allows us to adapt to an unstable environment, and to venture into new territories. Human beings can flourish from the tropics to the Arctic, through earthquakes and hurricanes, plagues and droughts, because we have developed the resilience that comes from play."