The MAJOR FUN AWARDS go to games and people that bring people fun, and to any organization managing to make the world more fun through its own personal contributions, and through the products it has managed to bring to the market.
What is the relation of available fun to intelligence?
What kind of emotional architecture is necessary to have fun?
Will eternal life be boring?
Will we ever run out of fun?
To answer questions like these… requires Singularity Fun Theory.
Does it require an exponentially greater amount of intelligence (computation) to create a linear increase in fun?
Is self-awareness or self-modification incompatible with fun?
Is (ahem) “the uncontrollability of emotions part of their essential charm”?
Is “blissing out” your pleasure center the highest form of existence?
Is artificial danger (risk) necessary for a transhuman to have fun?
Do you have to yank out your own antisphexishness routines in order not to be bored by eternal life? (I.e., modify yourself so that you have “fun” in spending a thousand years carving table legs, a la “Permutation City”.)
To put a rest to these anxieties… requires Singularity Fun Theory.
I decided that the Singularity Fun Theory was one of those theories that would be just as much fun if I didn't try too hard to understand what it actually means, and, putting a rest to my anxieties, remained quietly thankful that there are people thinking as deeply about the future of fun as Dr. Eliezer S. Yudkowsky.
Here, from the American Public Media show Speaking of Faith, people who like to play on the flying rings in Santa Monica's muscle beach give a near-word-for-word description of the flow-fun connection.
Watch them, listen to them, as they shed light on delight.
On the other hand, sometimes a thing that you do for fun isn't as much fun as it used to be, and some other times it's more fun than you remember it ever being before.
After several tours around the park near my son's house, discussing why it is that some things seem like more fun than others, we came to the conclusion that it has less to do with the fun of the thing in itself, but more with how much fun we're finding in it at the time.
We could at the time be finding a lot of fun in, for example, just walking together, father and son, in the relative peace and loving relationship in which we are finding each other, on this remarkably warm day in this lovely little park in Jerusalem, while there's no war in Gaza. On the other hand, we were finding at least as much fun talking about fun, in the conversation, in the intimacy of shared thought. It's not that the talk was in itself more fun than the walk. It's just that it was in the talk and in the walk that we were finding the fun.
The fun of the walk, on Csikszentmihalyi's chart, was something closer to what I've been calling minor fun. It's fun. It can be great fun. But talking, conversing, being in dialog, is higher on the flow channel. It can become far more complex, far more demanding, require far more of our minds and hearts. But, again, walking is not necessarily more fun than talking - when they're really fun, walking or talking, they're really fun - one just as really, as deeply, as totally as the other, separately or together. The same being true of mountain climbing and daydreaming, giving or getting a massage.
The thing about the kinds of fun you find in different positions in the flow channel is not that one is more fun than the other, but that each is the kind of fun you can get more or less of yourself and the world into - the kind of fun that can amuse you or challenge you to the very edge of all your vast abilities; the kind of fun that can lead you to regaining, or losing your very life.
Which, when you think about it, is something - depending on how much fun you are having, and what moment of the world you find yourself in - you could also say about talking and walking with your son in a park in Jerusalem.
My son and I were on one of our rare and most delicious walks through Jerusalem, when we got to talking about fun and flow and the connections and differences, not only between fun and flow, but also between the various kinds of fun, the degrees of flow. The more we walked and the further we walked, the clearer we were both able to get, at least about how I see the connections and degrees of it all.
Looking at a relatively simplistic image of flow as described in this article about the implications of flow on the nature of design, or a more recent, and more complex chart from an article about flow in the workplace, it's natural to conclude that among the various forms of flow, there are those which are "higher" and more fun, and those which are "lower," and not so much fun. Like, for example, watching TV, when it's fun, is not really as high or as good or as complete fun as skiing down a mountain, when it is fun.
Fact is, at least as I understand it, fun is fun. Fun is flow. And flow is flow, no matter how high or low it is in the channel. There are the apparently nobler kinds of flow, like those surgeons sometimes experience. And there are the oft-derided baser, more immediately accessible kinds, like those experienced by people who chew or smoke for fun. There are forms of flow that seem more like fun, like riding a roller coaster, and forms of fun that seem less like flow, like collecting stamps. But the whole point is that when chewing gum is fun, it's just as much fun as bungee jumping - when bungee jumping is fun. That's the big contribution of this whole idea of flow. Rock climbing or rock dancing, the joy, when it's joyful, is just as joyous, just as all-embracing, just as time- and mind-transcendent.
And what we were able to conclude in our most fun and flowful walk of ours was this: For me, flow is fun. And fun is fun. My playful path is not at all about having deeper fun, or looking for fun that's more major, or trying to identify the particular flavor of fun that is most profoundly and deliciously flow-like. It's about finding the kinds of fun that are fun for me, whatever they are - the kinds that are most reliably, most deeply, most thoroughly fun - and having them, living them, entirely, whenever I can, for however long they are fun for me. And most often, it appears to me that those kinds of fun tend to be the kinds of fun I can share with you, my son, and you, too, my cherished reader.
Play is such a difficult phenomenon to define because there are so many different ways it is experienced. Some experiences are qualitatively better. Some are worse. Some games better, some toys better. As we discuss the quality of play, we will explore a few such qualities, and hint at the remarkably many more qualities of play to yet define.
Scanning the web for terms relating to the quality of play, we begin with two almost universally agreed-upon attributes by which the experience of game or sport, for example, are measured – or at least expressed: "well-played" and "lousy."
We all know what a lousy game is like, how clearly, painfully obvious it becomes, to at least one of us, that everything about the game is lousy – the way each of us is playing, the way we're playing together. Disappointed in our selves, in each other. The game. The team. I am lousy. We. Are lousy. We are playing poorly, so poorly that the whole game got lousy.
Tim Candon, sports editor of the Cary News of Cary, NC, describes a particularly lousy game as follows:
"The Imps were universally disappointed after their lousy game Saturday against Sanderson, when they compiled 90 yards of total offense, including 17 rushing, and failed to score in the 16-0 loss to the Spartans.
"They lost. 16-0. They barely made any yardage the whole game. They were, as a team, 'universally disappointed.'"
Note that there was no mention of the quality of play as perceived by the winning team. The idea of a "lousy game" almost always refers the quality of the game as perceived by people when they are losing, or have lost.
In the Official Forum (an online forum for sports officials), Mark Padget writes in response to a question about how to recover from a "lousy game."
"Sometimes, I think during a game that I may be a little "off". We all know the reasons: head not in the game because of thinking of personal stuff, very tired, not feeling well, etc. Whenever I am alert enough to realize it during the game (sometimes with a little prompting from my partner), I try to concentrate on the things I can change immediately, such as hustling more, making sure I am in position, practicing proper mechanics on calls, etc."
The term "Lousy Game" is frequently used to describe the design of a game, rather than the way the game is played. As in the following customer review from Darrell Brock "Dazza"
"…this is just a lousy game. The graphics are not bad, the storyline is a little weak. But the controls suck and that makes for a lousy game. In first person mode, the controls are way too sensitive, and you cannot change the sensitivity or the up down orientation. The characters do things you do not want them to do, turn whatever way they want, stick to the wall when you do not want them to, refuse to when you do. The camera goes off on an angle you do not want. In fact, playing next to walls, I have seen nothing but the wall on the screen while the character is fighting."
The quality of "lousy game" can refer to either or both: the game, and the way the game is being played.
Then there’s a quality of play that is clearly the opposite of lousy - the "well-played" game. This quality also refers to both the game and the way that it is played. But, unlike, or opposite to a "lousy game," the "well-played game" is a shared quality. A game can be described as “lousy” by just one player, or by the spectators, or by the team. A well-played game is one that is appreciated by all the players, regardless of score or distance to the goal. One that in fact must be appreciated by all players. By definition.
The quality of "well-played" doesn’t describe the game itself, but rather how that game was played, enacted, performed. Even a game with a truly lousy design can be well-played.
"one’s opponents are an essential part of one’s quest for the well-played game." "Participants, they note, take pleasure in a well-played game, in which they put their best efforts in the desire to win. This requires the cooperation of all involved. The shared end is the game well played.”
Even in its absence, the appeal of "well-played"ness can so dominate the experience of a game that the Utah Daily Herald quotes the coach of the Utes, no less, saying.
"This was not a pretty game...They didn't play well, either. It was not a well-played game. I was disturbed by the lack of intelligence in the game."
Fun, like lousy and well-played, is a measure whose presence or absence has as significant an impact on the quality of the game as does "lousy" and "well-played."
There’s "the Beautiful Play" – which is similar to "well-played," but is more often applied to the quality of particular instance of the game rather than that of the game itself. Even a lousy game can feature a beautiful play or two.
And the expression "good game" – usually said with a towel-slap to an exposed buttock – denotes yet another quality, one usually associated with winning, one usually not expressed by the team that lost.
By deep study of the Codex of the Lost Ring, we hope to gather insight into the mystery and vasty significance of the The Lost Sport of Olympia. We seek further guidance from Ariadne, who says of herself: "I woke up in a Labyrinth of Feb. 12. They call me Ariadne." Ariadne, should you consult the Wikipedia deeply enough, also refers to: "Ariadne's thread, named for the legend of Ariadne, is the term used to describe the solving of a problem with multiple apparent means of proceeding - such as a physical maze, a logic puzzle, or an ethical dilemma - through an exhaustive application of logic to all available routes." Ah. Ariadne's thread.
The mystery deepens and at the same time widens. What actually is the Lost Sport? Where is Olympia? Who lost it in the first place?
ARG, don't you know, stands for Alternate Reality Game. Ah, so we are not speaking of an actual Lost Sport of Olympia, but something of a fantasy, something perhaps made up?
Perhaps in deed. But, reality-wise, the reality to which the alternate reality is an alternate, what we actually have is a quite fun game, which, as my colleague, covisionary and general friend Celia Pearce is quick to point out, is very much in the spirit of New Games of yore and ours. See, for example, this.
A Million Ways to Play Marbles, at least, was originally published in 1978, as an appendix to The Well-Played Game. I wrote it because I've found - in these many years of showing people how important, healing, inspiring fun can be - that it is extremely helpful for people to see games not so much as "things" but much more as "processes."
Generally, we think of a game as having a certain set of rules involving certain objects and aspects of the environment. But, if we take the time to remember, we discover that most games, especially the "good" ones, can be played in many different ways, with many different combinations of things and surroundings and people. Once that is understood, any game can become something that brings people together, regardless of the range of ages and abilities, because there really is no one way to play it, because we can change it in, well, a million different ways.
If you'd rather not read the whole thing, you can listen to me read it here.
My keynote address at the NASAGA conference (2006) was called "Deeply Played Games."
Here's why:
"The games that we play the most deeply, as kids or adults, the games we play hour after hour, day after day, year after year – these are the games that are the 'good' ones, these are the games that affect us most deeply, and in these games we can find the bits of cultural DNA that are most deeply embedded into our collective psyche, so to speak, as it were. In Tag, Hide-and-Seek, Checkers, Football, we develop a common understanding of fairness and cheating, leading and following, winning and losing.
"The good games. The games that get played deeply. The deeply played games. Playing them over and over, we begin to understand the game itself. Playing on different sides, in different positions, we begin to see the whole of the game, the web of strategy and counterstrategy, of trying to tag someone, of trying not to be tagged, of hiding and seeking.
"Deeply played games are games that we, for a time, can almost give ourselves over to completely, just about abandon ourselves to totally, get very close to divorcing from all other realities, embracing entirely, more or less. And the more we, as they say, “give it our all,” the more fun we seem to have. And the better we become at playing them, at understanding them. The more grace we can bring to them. The more of ourselves."
Should you care to read the entire address, you'll find it here.
Designed Play is a course in games, taught by Stephanie Rothenberg at The University of Buffalo - The State University of New York. I'm still not sure how I found my way to the site, but once I did, I knew why. Just reading about the course was enough for me. And the more I read about it, the more my faith was rekindled - in the future of games and the future of education, and the future of work, even.
"From early amusement parks to the ‘80’s video arcade craze to the current phenomena of portable entertainment gadgets and mega-leisure-malls, the design of “play” and its seamless integration into daily routine has become increasingly more prevalent in our everyday experiences. Play is being used for corporate team building, retail and museum design and edu-tainment. Advertisers have transformed game logic into a new marketing device. Computer electronics feature not only the latest business software but the hottest new digital games. In the current zeitgeist of ludic behavior, how do we delineate between what is work and what is play? As both consumers and cultural producers, is it important that we still maintain these boundaries? And why?"
There's lots more about what Dr. Rothenberg calls "the cultural use of game-based models" on this site. Scroll through the class schedule for more details and inspiration. Explore the various readings, scroll down to see the class responses. You might even learn something.
In 1972, in a revised version of the Teacher's Guide to Interplay, my very own and only curriculum in children's games, Dr. Vytas Cernius and I wrote an article describing what can happen when an adult joins in children's play.
I republished it here, because we were saying important things, then, revelations, even, like this:
"It is an amazing discovery, one that has to be continually rediscovered, that the attitude of openness and acceptance, the genuine desire of the adult to be present as an equal player within a group of players, are powerful forces which inevitably result in a positive social movement by all participants."
"Sometimes I get religious about the whole thing, sometimes I think of fun and laughter as a spiritual experience. Our lives have become increasingly fragile, our world increasingly harsh. It is a miracle that we can laugh at all. And that's the whole point."
New Tic Tac Toe was published in 1977, under the auspices of Herb Kohl. It was very exciting to me to be even remotely associated with Herb Kohl, and I was honored in extremis when he asked if I could write something for him that he could publish and distribute through his Center for Open Learning and Teaching. Herb, for gosh-sake Kohl! So honored that I didn't really actually totally mind that someone misspelled my name ("Big K in DeKoven," I told 'em, Big D, small e, Big K, small oven." But did they listen?).
This was in 1977. 31 years ago, comparatively speaking. I only recently found a copy of it in my "trophy file" along with magazines that published articles of mine and newspapers and stuff that I've been keeping for historical reasons beyond my ken. I was about to consign it to eternity (e.g. recycling), when I thought to read it again, and, by golly, I kind of liked it. I think I was almost able to understand what Herb had seen in it and me all those many years ago. So I scanned it and uploaded it.
If you want, you can download a pdf file of the scanned booklet, here
I finally found the source for a particular insight that has been bothering me for quite some time. Apparently, "Dr Fry, a psychiatrist at Stanford Medical School, found that children laugh an average of 300 times per day, while adults only laugh between 15 and 100 times per day (reported in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients August/September 1996 p. 10)."
This particular observation has been echoed almost endlessly by just about everyone who is pushing happiness, humor, laughter and all those positive things we so desperately wish we were feeling.
My observations, though not conflicting with Dr. Fry, are based on at least 10 years of grandparentage, and 40 years of parenthoodness.
Children cry at least as often as they laugh, if not more.
Oddly, as I get older, I find myself crying more easily, and more often. And I kind of like it. I'm not sure if I laugh more often. But I've always been a laugher.
If we are to take any message from Dr. Fry's research and my personal findings, it might be that adults would probably laugh again the way they laughed as children if they let themselves cry more often, as they did when they were children.
In another attempt at preparing for the future by exploring the past, I found myself reading an old interview I gave a few many years ago. And in it, I found myself saying:
Exploring the relationship between play and games: discovering and affirming both the connections and distinctions - turns out to be ever more relevant to our understanding of the future of both play and games. In universities and art studios, in computer laboratories and workshops, investigations of game/play relationship are leading to a profound evolution of both. A goodly number of these leading-edge explorations can be found in the playful works that comprise the current Homo Ludens Ludens collection. See, for example, Stiff People's League, in the illustration accompanying this post.
"...play reflects more the idea, the notion, the vivid and spontaneous basis for the action as well as its relation to fantasy, whereas games are closed systems and environments governed by rules which demand discipline and a constraint space and time. Play is in a way the presupposition for the games that are its expressions and forms.
"Play as a notion is much more open and therefore it may even embrace elements that come in opposition with a game's structure. For instance play has no death or end; but games do, otherwise there s no meaning into it. Or think of cheating. While it can destroy a game by breaking its rules, it is still a part, an act of play. On the same line, while any game forms hierarchies, play creates interrelations between them."
"...We can be playful anytime anyplace, not only through games. Games are basically a construction which is made possible because of this playfulness that already exists in any aspect of life."
People are doing some wonderful things in the name of play and games, art and technology. If you're interested in getting a taste, Homo Ludens Ludens is a virtual banquet.
"You've been on my mind lately because I've been thinking about your concept of half-belief that you shared at the last NASAGA conference [see this]. I have been noticing how many contexts in which this concept is relevant. It's a big component in just about anything creative: art, amusement parks, literature, fiction, movies (it explains how we can become 'lost' in a book or film), and theater. (Locally the New England Youth Theater did a version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The entire play, all the parts, were done by two teen-aged girls! It took place in their bedroom and, just the way kids play and make up games, they acted the whole show evolving into different characters as needed. So here you had the actors demonstrating the half belief that we as an audience engage in to enjoy a performance!)
"A couple of weeks ago, I was working with some nurses who support some medically fragile children in their family's home. The nurses were critical of the parenting in the home so I wanted them to look at some of their assumptions and get in touch wth some empathy for the family. I used Thiagi's Least Preferred Patient jolt. Three patients in a hospital noted for its geriatric work are described and people choose the one they'd least want to care for. It's set up so most people will choose one that turns out to be a cuddly infant.
"The surprise effect was lost on this group. One said, 'I always work the night shift so I wouldn't mind dealing with the patient that can't sleep (the baby). It'd give me something to do.' It seemed I'd chosen a jolt that was too close to the experience of these nurses for them to get into the half belief necessary to be caught off guard.
"So there's this tension or balance between having the 'game' be close enough to the person's experience to be relevant yet not so close as to be dismissed as ordinary and expected. I've seen this too in role plays where people begin discussing a real issue rather than practicing a role.
"You probably said all this in Atlanta, Bernie, so if I've forgotten the details, the general concept still lives on and informs me. It even explains why people support stupid politicians, wars, cults, and more: the need to believe in something that used to be meaningful."
The funny thing being that somehow we know that we don't "really" believe in these politicians, wars, cults. Not entirely. Not fully. At some level, we are not fooled. It's half-belief. And in trying to make half-belief whole, we end up fooling ourselves.
Brian adds:
"We do end up fooling ourselves! And we can choose to fool ourselves negatively or positively. I can say, 'That rubber alligator is such a fake,' and have a miserable time on the Disney jungle ride. Or I can say, 'Yikes, look out for the monster!' and have an adventure. I can say, 'Jane tried to float a pretty lame idea at the meeting,' and turn things into a dull day. Or I can say, 'Jane is quite an innovator. I think her idea might have some merit,' and, when I make the half-belief whole, fool myself into having a terrific day. A friend of mine says the only thing you can control is your own attitude - I think this is how she does it! Have we also, now, explained how a self-fulfilling prophecy works?"
Simages is a publication of NASAGA - the North American Simulation and Gaming Association, the very same North American Simulation and Gaming Association that honored me with the Ifill-Raynolds award for "outstanding achievements in the field of fun."
I am honored to tell you that I have been honored again. I was interviewed by Brian Remer, and the result closely approximates something one might call "cogent," if one were prone to using words of that ilk.
The interview, which is one among many fine articles, appears on page 12.
See also the excellent article by Dave Blum "Healthy Competition, an Oxymoron?"
I found another reference to something similar to the Me/We idea - the one I thought I had made up, and that recently someone in Al Gore's sphere also thought they made up, only differently.
In Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's TED presentation, she talks about the "we inside of me." You can find this particular part of her talk at around 16.50 on the video. Here's the text:
So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am -- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me.
My explorations of the idea of the We inside of Me, can be found here.
In yesterday's New York Times Week in Review, there was an article describing a new logo that was designed for Al Gore's We Can Solve It (the "Climate Crisis") campaign, an offshoot of his Alliance for Climate Protection. You probably noticed a certain connection between the logo design for We Can Solve It, and my Me-We logo. Allow me to disabuse you.
The Gore logo is of the word "WE." If you turn it upside down, you can see "EM" - which, as you perhaps almost immediately perceived, is "ME" spelled backwards.
Just to note a distinction. For Al Gore, and most people who are trying to address the public, WE is the real target. ME is only there because it is necessary - without it, there can't be a WE. I, on the other hand, have been using the Me-We connection to describe a relationship between two equal parties - individual and group. When you turn my Me/We logo upside down, it's still Me/We. The Me is never in a lesser position, never backwards.
This is the idea of Fun Community, which has become so central to my work, and play - the equal weight of Me and We, the equal value, importance, significance.
Thanks for finding that article, Lee. And telling me about it.
"As I approach my 35th birthday, I wonder if I'm having too much fun....Granted, what I call 'fun' is not what most people do. Here I use the term in a broad and intentionally self-deprecating way, to refer to anything my heart deeply wants, from meditation retreats to writing a novel...I think that, when push comes to shove, I have made these choices because I deeply wanted to make them. Sure, these deep yearnings are different from simply wanting to get some kicks. But they are still about 'fun,' I think: about the juiciness of life itself, about experience, about enjoying life, in the deepest sense.
"...Why are we supposed to grow up and stop having fun, anyway? First, at least for me, there is what Anthony Kronman called the 'firestorm of regret.' I am now at the age where peers of mine are not just rich tax attorneys, but also influential politicians, respected professors, and writers and editors at publications (even) more well-known than Zeek...These pangs of regret occur because of an underlying anti-fun value: that one should make something of oneself. This is a particular, Western value that is not shared by all civilizations. Probably the most obvious counterexample is the Rastafarian (or pop-Rasta) value of spending an entire life delighting in the pleasures of Jah -- working, to be sure, to better social justice, but never losing sight of the gifts of creation, which are here to be enjoyed.
"A third reason to stop having fun, along with regret and the value of achievement, has to do with dignity and maturity. It's just undignified, isn't it, to be the balding guy on the dance floor.
"A fourth reason to stop having so much fun is, of course, that life isn't always fun. Pleasure, even in its deepest form, is only one of the important aspects of life. In a long-term relationship, for example, pleasure waxes and wanes, but if the pursuit of immediate sensual pleasure (affairs -- fun!) is placed above commitment (less fun), the end result will likely be sorrow. Or in terms of health: the burger is fun, but heart surgery is not....
"Fifth, if life is only pursued for the delights of the self -- even highly refined delights like reading post-structuralist theory or creating art -- it becomes a dead end. It's too easy to keep searching for the next thrill; this is how people become addicted to drugs, like an acquaintance of mine who died, at age 38, because of his years-long crystal meth addiction. At first it's fun; then it's less fun; then you need to do it to have any fun at all. So, too, with spirituality. The first meditation retreat is such a high! You think you'll never come back down. But then you do, and you start searching for the next high: samadhi becomes a narcotic.
"Finally, I think we're meant to stop having fun, at some point, because of a sense of deeper responsibilities, most importantly to family and community. Of course, since I've defined 'fun' to include anything that provides a sense of joy in life, family is fun too. But I think it's distinguishable, in that the intention of the family man or woman may be less 'I am doing this to taste the joys and sorrows of life' than 'I am doing this because it is my role, or my duty, or my responsibility.' Likewise for career; it may be fun, but it's mainly responsibility."
Of course, Michaelson's six reasons not to have fun: "...regret, achievement, maturity, truthfulness to life, avoiding the dead-end, and taking responsibility" are, at the same time, of course, six very good courses to take, actually, to bring more fun into your life: try letting go of regret, the need to achieve, the illusion of maturity, the belief that you could be anything other than true to life, try letting go of dead ends, taste responsible fun.
Top Ten Tips for Run-of-the-Mill Players to Enjoy Outstanding Games - from Craig Conley, guest blogger
There's nothing so comfy as mediocrity. Indeed, our culture teaches us both explicitly and implicitly that "okay" is good enough. But when it comes to fun, the middle-of-the-road game players cheat themselves out of something precious. Lackluster players miss out on the special spark that characterizes outstanding game play. We're not talking about the thrill of victory versus the agony of defeat. An outstanding player will have more fun losing a game than an average player will have winning a game. The fact is that mediocre players cannot, by definition, get caught up in the lighthearted spirit of the game.
Following are ten techniques for transforming yourself into an outstanding player of your favorite game.
1. Seek your game's hidden source of entertainment, its heart of fascination. In Classical times, Greek and Roman games consisted mainly of running, wrestling, jumping, riding, and racing. On the surface, these games were nothing out of the ordinary, yet their players made them the world's most extraordinary entertainments, exciting the enthusiasm and awakening the spirits of the spectators.[1]
To find your game's heart of fascination, observe those moments when players become carried away, when they exclaim joyously, when they leap into the air or rise off their seats as if suddenly weightless. Notice those moments when teams cheer one another, when the thrill of the play dissolves rivalry. When you identify the dynamic at play—the true spirit of the game—you can foster it, prolong it, and take it to Olympic heights.
2. Improve your flexibility and agility (whether muscular or mental). To stretch your gray matter, a Web search for "lateral thinking exercise" will offer puzzles unsolvable by traditional step-by-step logic. To increase your physical flexibility, the "sun salutation" of Yoga is a 12-step series of poses that exercise every muscle and joint of the body. Do a Web search for "sun salutation" to find free pictorial guidance.
3. Use drills to work on weaknesses (whether muscular or mental). If another player is one step ahead of you mentally or one second faster than you physically, that's a winning edge. A single increment of improvement may be all you need for success. Set simple goals and work one step at a time.
4. Better your memory. A good memory is a boon to virtually any game. A Web search for "memory game" will yield hundreds of free online resources for exercising your powers of recollection.
5. Dispel falsehoods that hinder you. Are you convinced that golf isn't a woman's game, or that softball is a young person's game, or that pinball is about making lights blink with a rolling ball? Educate yourself about your game. Read books, explore websites, talk to other players. There's always more to learn.
6. Sharpen your concentration. This is the age of the eleven-second attention span. Being easily distracted is ruinous to game play. Sharpening your concentration takes conscious, prolonged, repeated effort. Keep a journal about your game. Thinking and writing about your game will help to increase your power of concentration.
7. Manage your stress. Stress management techniques will help you improve virtually any game. A Web search for "stress management" will yield hundreds of free online tips and techniques. One marvelous stress reducer is laughter. A Web search for "laughter therapy" will inform you about how laughter reduces stress hormones, boosts immunity, promotes a positive attitude, and engenders a feeling of power.
8. Practice solo. If your game involves two or more people, don't let that fact discourage you from practicing any aspects you can work on by yourself.
9. Embrace change. "Change is necessary to improve your game. You must not be afraid to risk giving up the known for the unknown if you wish to play better."[2]
10. The final tip is too specific to apply to just any game. You already know what it implies, or will soon discover it through your ongoing self-education. Perhaps this tip will require the help of a coach or the advice of a teaching pro. Perhaps it will involve visualization techniques, or the use of a video camera, or familiarization with quantum physics. This final tip may be the ultimate key to your fullest enjoyment of your game.
Once I learned to see the connections between theater and children's games, I began to understand the wisdom contained in their playful dramas.
Once I started sharing this wisdom with adults, it became the thing I liked to do best - more, even, than designing games or reviewing games or writing about games and fun and stuff. I first discovered this when I was leading a workshop for teachers at the Durham Child Development Center in Philadelphia, and rediscovered my joy in ths at the Games Preserve and at the Esalen Institute.
I play with grown-ups, especially playful grown-ups. We play a kids' game together. I talk a little about the theater of the game - the play and interplay of roles. And then everyone talks about the "drama" of the game, as if the game were really some kind of theater piece - especially about the drama they experienced, personally. Not so much about their own, personal drama, but about about the drama of the game itself, about relationships, about the way of things in gameland.
I like what happens as we play and talk, play and talk - some kind of healing, playful, loving wisdom starts manifesting itself. Because we are grown-ups playing these games. Because of the growing honesty and openness and depth of sharing we are capable of, just the act of playing each game reveals to us a depth, a drama more profound, more personal, a truth more mutual, more freeing.
"I have learned to see children's games as scripts," I write, "for a kind of children's cultural theater. I see them as collective dreams in which certain themes are being toyed with - investigated and manipulated for the sake of sheer catharsis or some future reintegration into a world view. They are reconstructions of relationships - simulations - (myths) - which are guided by individual players, instituted by the groups in which they are played or abstracted by the traditions of generations of children."
I like to do this best. Teach people to see this. The artistry, the clarity, the wisdom of games.
And frankly, I'm hoping that by telling you about it, I'll get to do this more.
Clive Thompson, a contributing writer for The New York Times, writes:
...By the looks of it, we're entering a new golden age of social, face-to-face game playing. Consider that in the last year, the biggest breakout hits have been music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and the Wii's sporty and casual titles.
Each of these games explicitly encourages social playing -- people hanging out together. (Here's a revealing cultural moment: I was walking down the street in the East Village last month and overheard two female college students complaining vociferously that they hadn't been invited to their friend's Rock Band session.)
Perhaps we're simply going back to the roots of gaming. Though you wouldn't know it from the perennial hysteria about games turning kids into walleyed, anti-social zombies, videogames were originally a social pursuit, because the best games were available only in arcades, and those places were as convivial as Irish pubs. You'd watch one another play, you'd share techniques, you'd talk trash, gossip.
In the late '80s, the rise of home consoles broke up that sociality, making gaming a more solitary pursuit -- something you pursued alone in a basement or a bedroom. But 10 years later, the rise of multiplayer gaming brought the public vibe back to games. That was particularly true of world-games like World of Warcraft, where players log in often for the sole purpose of chatting.
So maybe it's no surprise that we're coming full circle. We don't want to play alone. We want play dates.
Playing alone is fun. There are puzzles and solitaire and running around trees and stuff. Playing together is funner.
The Spirit of the Game - from guest blogger Craig Conley
The "Spirit of the Game"
by Craig Conley
Without the spirit of the game, what would the game be? —Nevin H. Gibson, The Encyclopedia of Golf
Arabian folklore tells of a wish-granting genie imprisoned in an oil lamp or bottle. Might players innocently conjure such a spirit in a game of spin-the-bottle? Indeed, every game has a motivating force at the heart of it -- its own sort of soul. Whatever we might call it -- essence, atmosphere, intention, or ethos -- it's that special spark that distinguishes the game from all others. Like a genie of folklore, the Spirit of the Game grants good sports a wish -- the ultimate wish. (We'll get to that in a moment.)
The Spirit of the Game is not necessarily spelled out in the rules. Indeed, "There are situations in which adherence to the so-called letter of the rules can be taken to violate the spirit of the game."[1]
The Spirit of the Game is a distillation of the intent of the rules. It has been called "a self-regulating set of norms without which some games would degenerate into anarchy."[2]
It is a frame of mind, not a commandment carved in stone. It's a point of view, a sense of humor, a strength of character. Novelist Richard Le Gallienne summed it up perfectly: "To be whimsical, therefore, in pursuit of a whim, fanciful in the chase of a fancy, is surely but to maintain the spirit of the game."[3]
Because it is typically undefined, the Spirit of the Game can be abused. Unsportsmanlike conduct (like taunting and intimidation) is one indication of abuse; bringing the game into disrepute is another.[4]
When honored across the board, the Spirit of the Game turns opponents into equals. Most importantly, it engenders fun. While camaraderie is jolly and competition is stimulating, "the real spirit of the game is all about having fun."[5]
Though each game has its own unique Spirit, there are some universal characteristics. The Spirit of the Game is:
Ultimately, the Spirit of the Game "is the only thing in the game which is lasting."[6]
Corporate trainer Julius E. Eitington makes an interesting observation: when players become caught up in the Spirit of the Game, they "become themselves."[7]
What is one's true self, but that of a player on the grand game board of life? Edward Clark Marsh once described being enlivened by the Spirit of the Game: "If it was not for a moment real life, it at least made you wish it were."[8]
Other signs that the Spirit of the Game is present include:
• both sides wish each other good luck • both sides cheer one another (winning or losing is secondary; the game itself is a victory for all [9]) • everyone plays fair (no cheating, no bending of the rules) • players celebrate the game's tradition, safeguard its precedent, and carry on its legacy • players supervise themselves.
Game scientist Andrew Thornton notes that "There is no agreed upon definition of the Spirit of the Game, but there is a pervasive sense that one should play by it. The Spirit of the Game is the Police" inside each player's head.[10]
But we've neglected the quintessential sign that the Spirit of the Game is present. And that's when the ultimate wish is granted: the firing shot that sets play into motion. When the game is afoot, all else is inconsequential!
Fun Facts about the Spirit of the Game:
• In Ultimate Frisbee, where there are no referees and no penalties, the Spirit of the Game is the underlying philosophy. "The Ultimate player will always praise and support successful actions on both teams. It is a normal thing to introduce yourself to the opponent at the beginning of every point and to wish him a good game. And after the game both teams stand in a circle talking about the game and singing a song for the opponent team. So it is a lot more than just a short handshake after a game."[11]
• The Spirit of the Game comes into play "before the game has even begun."[12]
• "Soccer is unique among sports in that the official's job is first and foremost to maintain the spirit of the game as well as the safety of all concerned; this concern outweighs all other laws of the game."[13]
• The Spirit of the Game of soccer has been traced back to the early to mid nineteenth century, when the game developed from its folk roots into its modern form.[14]
• The Spirit of the Game of curling "demands good sportsmanship, kindly feeling, and honourable conduct."[15]
• The Fighting Spirit of the Game of American football is persistently aggressive in nature: "Throughout the history of football, the violent spirit of the game has endured, even as other elements of the game have changed."[16]
• The Spirit of the Game of lacrosse "is a feeling of honor and dignity."[17]
• The Spirit of the Game reminds players that not everything is a matter of life and death, that consequences are temporary, and that results are not critical.[6]
• The Spirit of the Game teaches players to "accept success with grace and failure with restraint."[18]
• The Spirit of the Game of golf is characterized by disciplined conduct, courtesy, and sportsmanship at all times.[19]
[1] Allan C. Hutchinson, It's All in the Game, 2000, p. 195. [2] Lincoln Allison, Amateurism in Sport, 2001, p. 161. [3] The Quest of the Golden Girl, 1897, p. 35. [4] William John Morgan, Ethics in Sport, 2007, p. 126. [5] Richard Carlson, The Don't Sweat Guide to Golf, 2002, p. 205. [6] Division for Girls' and Women's Sports, Sports Programs for College Women, June 21-27, 1969, p. 23. [7] The Winning Trainer, 2001, p. 142. [8] "Anthony Hope's 'Sophy of Kravonia,'" The Bookman, 1907, p. 381. [9] Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring, 2000, p. 124. [10] Belinda Wheaton, ed., Understanding Lifestyle Sport, 2004, p. 187. [11] Jorg Bahl, Ultimate Frisbee, 2007, p. 4. [12] John Byl, Co-Ed Recreational Games, 2002, p. 205. [13] Andy Caruso, Soccer Coaching, 1996, p. 29. [14] Sharon Colwell, "The 'Letter' and the 'Spirit': Football Laws and Refereeing in the Twenty-First Century," The Future of Football, 2000, p. 201. [15] Gary Belsky & Neil Fine, 23 Ways to Get to First Base, 2007, p. 209. [16] William D. Dean, The American Spiritual Culture, 2002, p. 148. [17] Steve Bristol, quoted in Our Game: The Character and Culture of Lacrosse by John M. Yeager, 2005, p. 79. [18] Hubert Vogelsinger, The Challenge of Soccer, 1973, p. 274. [19] United States Golf Association, Golf Rules Illustrated, 2004, p. 4.
About the author:
Craig Conley is an independent scholar and author of One-Letter Words: A Dictionary (HarperCollins) and Magic Words: A Dictionary (Red Wheel). His website is http://www.oneletterwords.com/ His Zen version of Rock-Paper-Scissors can be found at http://www.moonfishocean.com/
It is something of a testimony to something to discover I have friends like these, who think of me so lovingly as to send me something like this:
Bernie,
Thought of you as I just finished reading Alan Alda's memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed And Other Things I've Learned. (Highly recommended for anyone with a theater background!) The back story on this quote is that in October of 2003, he was in Chile working on an episode of Scientific American Frontiers. Filming at a remote mountaintop observatory he came within probably an hour or two of dying from an obstructed bowel but through a wonderful series of events involving both grace and luck was successfully operated on and is still thriving.
[page 218] Chapter 21. Golden Time.
"On a movie set, after the crew has worked twelve straight hours, they go into overtime pay in which every hour is worth two. It's called golden time. After Chile, I was on golden time. It was clear to me that everything I did was something I couldn't have done if I'd checked out in La Serena. Now, at last, there was no pressure to succeed. There was nothing I needed to prove to anyone. There was only the chance to have another day and to have some kind of fun with it; trivial fun or deep fun, they were both good. I still wanted to get better at what I knew how to do, but that was just another kind of fun."
"There was only the chance to have another day," says Alan Alda, "and to have some kind of fun with it; trivial fun or deep fun, they were both good. I still wanted to get better at what I knew how to do, but that was just another kind of fun."
What a wonderful connection. What wisdom. What a good friend Bruce is to have remembered me with this. What fun. What a fun way to embrace all 54 flavors of fun.
Someone sent me this question: Are video games ever good for kids?
I guess it came at a good time, because I actually enjoyed writing my answer:
Are video games ever good for kids? Of course they are. They can be good for adults, and even seniors, too.
Can they be bad? Of course they can. It depends on the games and on the people who are playing them.
Actually, the same can be said for any kind of game. Can chess be bad? It can be, if it becomes an obsession, if the chess players pursue chess to the exclusion of everything else social, physical, and intellectual.
In fact, the category "video games" is itself misleading. The term comes from the arcade game era, and was used primarily to describe games like Pong and Breakout and PacMan. And these games suffered from the same misconception that led to us asking the very same question - are they good for kids.
Currently, kids have access to a very wide variety of things you might call video games, and other games that involve computers that you wouldn't think to call video games, but, in fact, have the same characteristics. Texting, for example, via cell phone, chatting and IMing via computer. Not games, actually, but highly interactive platforms for largely intellectual engagement. And then there are mass multiplayer online environments, like Second Life, which no one thinks of as video games, and yet have many of the same attributes.
I myself have designed games of almost every ilk, including computer games. Some were intellectual exercises, some social. Some were for the Children's Television Workshop, others for dedicated videogame companies, others for board and card game publishers. They all have succeeded in engaging children, in challenging them to solve and master some intellectual or social problem. And, as such, have all proven good for them - except for the few kids who took the games too seriously.
Which brings to mind all those concerns about violence in children's games. I personally don't like games that involve people blowing each other up. But I can't tell you that they're bad for kids, because I think most kids are not fooled by the imagery, and focus rather on mastering the intellectual, visual, and physical challenges these games pose. Take, for example, chess. Isn't it all about killing? Killing military figures and religious figures and government figures and destroying their homes?
On the other hand, violent imagery isn't necessary for a good game or a good video game. Take, for example, the many variations of the Sims, or my current conceptual passion - the beautifully cooperative game of Chilone.
But, I can't say violent games are really bad for kids, either. If kids are seeing violence, in their neighborhoods or on TV or in the movies, then it's part of their lives, and it's something they need to play with, to integrate into their world view.
There's a great story from Sara Similansky about pre-school kids who were playing outside, in the school playground, when a car hit a pedestrian. Soon an ambulance came and took the pedestrian to the hospital. It was a potentially traumatic experience for the kids. The next day, they started playing Accident and Ambulence. They continued playing for several days. And then went on to something else.
A colleague received the following note from a teacher interested in attending a session I was teaching about The Well-Played Game:
Do you feel this workshop will work with 10 of our teachers combined with 20 other people from other areas in the community?
I really am not totally convinced of the direct application of this workshop to the classroom, but maybe you can convince me more! I do see the relevancy of having fun, but I guess I am used to workshops for teachers that are specifically geared to the curriculum and classroom.
Here's my response:
As a teacher, hired by the School District of Philadelphia, back in 19 - can you believe it - 68! to write a city-wide elementary school curriculum in, yes, theater - I discovered how remarkably ineffective our schools were at teaching kids how to work together. Theater, as I understood it, is a demanding, labor-intensive, social collaboration. It's all about working together, creating together, acting together. So I wound up developing a 5-volume, 6-hole punched curriculum to teach kids how to play together.
As a teacher, especially as someone who was working inner city elementary school kids, who spent his time playing games like duck-duck-for-goodness-sake-goose, I learned how important play was to human, social and intellectual growth. And how important social growth was to educational growth. And how silly we were to expect kids who didn't even have a chance to play together to become skilled at working together.
And that's what I'm still teaching 40 years later.
Yes, I realize that the ability to work well together is not measured directly, per se. But my guess is that any experienced teacher understands how a kid's ability to play with other kids turns out to be part of everything that we educate for - not just math and reading skills, but intelligence, maturity, esteem, leadership, grace.
Play and self-regulation? Play, the apotheosis of abandonment, spontaneity and general mucking about...and self-regulation?
Well, maybe not play, so much. But games. Games, for sure. Like, for example, Simon Says. Here's what Alix Speigel says in her article Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
"Simon Says is a game that requires children to inhibit themselves. You have to think and not do something, which helps to build self-regulation."
And this about reading stories with preschoolers from researcher Laura Berk:
"Reading storybooks with preschoolers promotes self-regulation, not just because it fosters language development, but because children's stories are filled with characters who model effective self-regulatory strategies."
And the there's even talking to yourself. "Permitting and encouraging children to be verbally active," writes Speigel, "to speak to themselves while engaged in challenging tasks — fosters concentration, effort, problem-solving, and task success."
"In fact," says "executive function researcher" Laura Berk, "if we compare preschoolers' activities and the amount of private speech that occurs across them, we find that this self-regulating language is highest during make-believe play. And this type of self-regulating language… has been shown in many studies to be predictive of executive functions."
Speigel continues: "It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline...We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished...Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn."
If we'd only let them play.... If we only believed in fun....
When I first wrote about the Myanmar game of Chinlone, I really only had minor intimations of how important that game was to become to me. It wasn't until I watched Greg Hamilton's movie, Mystic Ball, that I understood not only his profound passion for Chinlone, but my passion for The Well-Played Game.
When I wrote The Well-Played Game, I described a pivotal experience I had, during a game of Ping Pong. Later, I found a wonderful story by Bill Russell, in which he describes an experience of genuine transcendence, similar to mine, but in the highly competitive game of professional basketball. But in all these years of teaching, Mystic Ball, the movie, was the first time I've found the Well-Played game expressed so purely, understood so deeply, documented so thoroughly - in a game totally devoted to sharing that particular experience.
The film opens with the following Myanmar proverb: "The spirit of give and take that breeds happiness is the foundation on which the game of Chinlone rests." We are then transported into an astonishingly ornate building, festooned with bare electric bulbs and intricate carvings covered in gold paint. On the inside, we see a kind of theater-in-the-round. On stage, 6 people playing with a rattan ball. Hamilton comments: "Getting to play with this team that I just played with is like playing with Michael Jordan and Baryshnikov and Fred Astaire and Bruce Lee and Muhammed Ali and all the most beautiful movement people and sports people I could ever imagine...It's surely the most fun, beautiful, mystical feeling...This is like my religion and my love and my heart. Chinlone is just all about love and happiness."
The film progresses from scene to scene of beauty, passion, grace and skill. We observe the art of making a Chinlone ball. We see the game played everywhere throughout Myanmar, by men and women, children and elders, on the street, in practice courts, in dedicated arenas. We follow the highest practitioners of the art. Director and author Greg Hamilton explains what he has discovered in the game of Chinlone with a clarity and intensity that characterizes every scene of this remarkable film.
"The most amazing thing about Chinlone, Hamilton comments, "is that it's not competitive. There's no opposing team, no scoring, and no winners or losers. The team tries to keep the ball up as long as possible. But that's not enough. The real goal is to do the most difficult and beautiful moves they can."
"Watching them play was a revelation. What really stuck out was just how playful they were. They weren't arguing or fighting, like always happens in competitive sports. These guys were just having...a good time. It really made me think about how most sports are not playful."
His background is in martial arts. He says: "I used to think of myself as a warrior. But deep down, I never really liked hurting people." In Chinlone, however, he discovered that he could "do something as if my life depended on it, but without having to defeat anyone."
Near the end of the film, he takes us to his favorite Chinlone practice court. He comments: "There's so much beauty inside this circle - the flow of the ball between us, and the 'tic toc' sound the ball makes as we support each other."
I was fortunate enough to get to talk to Greg about this beautiful film, and to get a personal experience of his deep passion for the game. Basically, I just wanted to convey my excitement and gratitude for what he has brought to us - and to me, especially, in his being able to capture and convey what I have devoted my life to teaching. Greg commented: "I didn't really want to be in the film in the first place." He just wanted to show us the game itself. But he was as much a part of the story as the game was, and he couldn't avoid it. What he wanted most to share with us was that: "Something as serious as Chinlone could be so playful." What he most wanted us to perceive was that "above all, Chinlone is a way of loving."
Later, I sent Greg a draft of this post, asking for further comment. Here's part of his reply:
The interaction between the ball and the players and the players with each other is sensuous, I can't think of a better way to put it. In my opinion, and I've asked some of men players about this and they agree - Chinlone it is strangely similar to making love. Because of a certain modesty with the the women in Myanmar, I've not been able to ask women players some of these kind of questions. It's like the essence of what making love is - not the rubbing together of body parts, but the intense, immediate connection and playing together of spirits. It really is play isn't it? This is one of the unique and breathtaking things I've found in Chinlone. And you can do it for hours at time with 1,2,3,4,5, or even more other people! When I see dogs playing and frolicking together - it's making love through play, and that is the feeling I've always wanted my life to be full of. There is always love and the sensual inside real play.
So many things that I didn't say or bring up in the film, for various reasons. One being that I didn't want to come across preachy, and of course there is only so much you can fit into 83 minutes. There are lots and lots of other things to share about Chinlone.
I think Chinlone is a feminine sport. One is nurtured and embraced in this game. It's not about power or dominance. There is a gentleness, an inclusiveness and a loving feeling that is always there – even between the audience and the players. Men and women play together, old folks and young ones play together. At the first Chinlone festival I saw, there was a team that had a 72 year old (in fact it was Wei Za Than, the one with the beautiful wife!) and a 9 year old on the same team - I was blown away!
All of the play in Chinlone is an end in itself. There are no arbitrary rules, just a certain etiquette and a lot of intuition inside the circle. I love that. There is a struggle with gravity, that as skill develops, becomes an elemental dance of pure flow.
So many things that I love about Chinlone - it is so hard that everyone, even the greatest players end up looking foolish fairly often - nothing to do but laugh about it, and 5 or 10 minutes into a game everyone is laughing for sure. You didn't see a lot of this in the film because I focused on the festival plays and because there is an audience, the players are a little more serious than usual. It's a very, very funny game.
Here we are on this giant spinning ball - in orbit. I feel a connection between the way Chinlone is played and the orbiting of planets. I'm still working on this one and trying to find clear ways of talking about it.
In his wonderful presentation on the Core of Fun, Ralph Koster identifies four more kinds of fun:
"Games," Koster conjectures, "mostly focus on hard fun."
I, of course, think of "hard fun" in terms of "flow, complexity and the 'slanty line'," and social fun in terms of "coliberation." Nevertheless, these are in deed 4 more flavors of fun to behold, enjoy, and plant into our many-flavored garden of conceptual joy.
See also Koster's "Theory of Fun." And perhaps this, from one game company that claims to put the theory into practice.
The Well-Played Game applied: The Player as Author
In 2003, Cindy Poremba, "a digital media theorist, producer and curator researching documentary and videogames through Concordia University's Doctoral Humanities program," published a paper which she titled: "Remaking Each Other's Dreams: Player Authors in Digital Games." The abstract begins: "One of the more interesting and distinct aspects of the digital game genre is the proliferation of player-produced content and artifacts."
One of the references she cites is a book, originally published in 1978. The book is about social games - you know, like hide and seek and tag - about the social dynamics, the balance, the rules, like quitting and cheating and stuff. And, oh, yes, it's a book I happened to write - The Well-Played Game - which partially explains my excitement about discovering Poremba's paper. The other thing that excites me, maybe even more, is what she has to say about what I wrote - how well easily she sees the relevance of the book (remember, it was written 30 years ago) to an understanding of the dynamics of the online play community.
In fact, I'd like to go further - to explore its relevance to the virtual world at large. But that's another story.
Cindy's website, shinySpinning, is a treasure for anyone wanting to explore our ever-evolving understanding of fun, games, community and media.
Taking Play Seriously. So far, no fewer than seven of my friends wrote me about this article in yesterday's New York Times (I have some very good friends). It concludes: "Animal findings about how play influences brain growth suggest that playing, though it might look silly and purposeless, warrants a place in every child’s day. Not too overblown a place, not too sanctimonious a place, but a place that embraces all styles of play and that recognizes play as every bit as essential to healthful neurological development as test-taking drills, Spanish lessons or Suzuki violin."
This conclusion was my favorite part of a lengthy (12 page) article that explores many theories of play - the majority based on studies of animal play, some on brain studies, and the rest on play scholarship. But it was the conclusion I liked best. Maybe because, over the many years of my own personal explorations of play, I've become familiar with most of these studies; maybe also because I've come to believe that we can be of greater service, not by trying to understand play, but by having more faith in our children's love for it, more appreciation for our own moments of pointeless exuberance, more respect for the fundamental glee that comes from being alive.
A Competitor's Perspective on New Games and Ultimate Frisbee
Joey Grey, my Ultimate Frisbee friend of many years now, sent me this link to an article titled: "The Origins of Ultimate Frisbee's 'Spirit' - Is THIS What You Signed Up For?"
I've not encountered such a deeply researched and passionately negative perspective on New Games and Ultimate Frisbee before. The main argument: that the "Spirit of the Game has nothing to do with good sportsmanship and everything to do with survival of the weakest" is, on the one hand, oddly distorted, and on the other, remarkably perceptive.
Ultimately, if you excuse the expression, this article is a real contribution to the evolution of everything that we tried to do with New Games. He has included some valuable links to scholarly and historic documents about the New Games "movement," and provides us with some major insights about why our ideas are still as revolutionary today as they were 40 years ago.
Perhaps, before you read his article, it might help to understand who the author is, and why:
"Frank Huguenard began playing Frisbee in the late 1960’s and being from a large chaotic family in Indiana, grew up fiercely competitive. By the late seventies, Frank had become fairly proficient with a disc and being athletically inclined, when he heard that there was a Frisbee-centric team sport on the Purdue campus, he immediately took to it and became involved with the sport called Ultimate. Being a square peg stuffed into a round hole (a competitive jock amongst a culture designed specifically to accommodate neither), Frank has spent decades ostensibly miserable in a environment (ironically created to emphasize fun and inclusion) that he consistently experienced as hostile and unaccepting towards him, his out of the box thinking and his unconventional throws & moves."
He correctly concludes: "you can't have a competitive sport based on the kind of ideology that creates a level playing field for the weakest player to have a fair shot at winning." Creating a level playing field for the weakest player to have a fair shot at winning - that's exactly what we did with our New Games, over and over again. We did it by not taking competition seriously. By demonstrating alternatives, by creating opportunities for people to experience "loving competition." Were we, as the author charges, "excluding ultra-competitive personalities from competition?" Why should we? Our culture has produced endless opportunities for ultra-competitive personalities to compete, like, for example, war. What we were creating were alternatives to "win at all costs" competition at a time when there were very, very few, not even skateboarding or bungee jumping.
The author has gone on to create what he considers to be a solution - a truly competitive version of Ultimate Frisbee that he calls Disc Hoops. It's not the kind of game I'd be able to play, or even want to. Me, I'm still creating alternatives of the "anybody can win" type. Not to compete with him, heaven forfend, but because, as he so clearly points out, the need for more and newer games doesn't seem to have diminished at all, at all.
Fairy chess, explains the Wikipedian, "is a term in a chess problem which expands classical (also called orthodox) chess problems which are not direct mates. The term was introduced before the First World War. While selfmate dates from the Middle Age, helpmate was invented by Max Lange in the late 19th century. Thomas Dawson (1889-1951), pioneer of fairy chess, invented many fairy pieces and new conditions. He was also problem editor of The Fairy Chess Review (1930-1951)."
"On the other hand," comments the Funsmith, "Fairy Chess is an invitation to a cornucopious collection of what can only be called "Variant Chess Games," or, shall we say, more ways to play chess than you could shake a pawn at."
"Fairy Chess," continues the Funsmith, eyes akimbo with conceptual glee, "is, in fact, the chessular embodiment of Junkyard Sports, New Games and every one of those noblly playful efforts to return the power of play to the hands, hearts and minds of the players."
Facebook friend Phil Shapiro wanted us to know about an article he found about monkey laughs. Yup, turns out that monkeys laugh, too. Or at least they do something that sure seems like laughing.
The article cites Dr Marina Davila Ross, from the University of Portsmouth, who "studied the play behaviour of 25 orang-utans aged between two and 12 at four primate centres around the world." She discovered that: "When one of the orang-utans displayed an open, gaping mouth, its playmate would often display the same expression less than half a second later."
"In humans," she explains, "mimicking behaviour can be voluntary and involuntary. Until our discovery there had been no evidence that animals had similar responses.
"What is clear now is the building blocks of positive emotional contagion and empathy that refer to rapid involuntary facial mimicry in humans evolved prior to humankind."
Ah, rapid involuntary facial mimicry. How fun is that?
The Sound and Fury at the Educational Centre for Games in Israel
I learned about The Sound and the Fury more than 30 years ago, when I first joined the New Games Foundation. Since then, I've been teaching it almost every chance I get. I have my reasons, in deed I do. It's a great way to get people involved, engaged, open, willing to play, exploring their own capacities for public silliness, and a perfect introduction to the idea of Coliberation.
I had the chance to teach the game again with some rather remarkable people in a rather remarkable place. The remarkable thing about these people was that they came from all over Israel because they value play and games and toys as tools for restoring health. The remarkable place was called "The Educational Centre for Games in Israel." And the remarkable woman who invited me to speak was its director, Helena Kling.
"Helena is by profession a psychologist specializing on Children’s Play in Hospita, and has for many years been working on projects about play. At present running the Educational Centre for Games in Israel, a non-profit association which she describes as follows:'We have a small building full of stuff, a veritable 'heritage centre' of play; there is 'hands on play' available; a work room where people can make games and toys; an exhibition room with miniature rooms and two model railways; a library that has become a centre of information on play; a large collection of Israeli board games and collection of collections and dolls and so much more that if I go on writing about it I am afraid of disbelief!'"
Such wonderful energy. Such a deep commitment to play. Such an honor. Such a fun person to play with.
"I need to lighten up," Wade muses, "and remember that whatever happens will be tiny from the perspective of the universe. Regardless of the amount of suffering in the world, the beauty of the universe heals."
I go on to quote Wade quoting: "The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig," says Wade, "-- a manual for self-actualization, community building, and political activism -- helped crystallize this awareness for me (Many thanks to Eva Paterson for recommending it!). To help me in my effort to be less serious and for your information, I take note of the following quotes from Rettig's book:
'Strive to step freely and lightly around your activism, to plunge into it and back out of it at will, and enjoy taking risks around it, knowing that some of those risks will inevitably lead to failure. Yes, there will be stress--an activist career is perhaps the most stressful around--but it is essential that you not only learn to handle that stress gracefully, but recognize that, at any given moment, you are making a choice as to how stressed you feel.'"
My point being, you, too, could be choosing, right now, to have fun, even.
"If we accept Equipotentiality as the basic worldview and principle explaining peer to peer dynamics, then Coliberation is the active ethical principle derived from it.
"It signifies both the shared transcendence of the group, and the practice of designing social processes so each of us can be the condition and enabler of the other participants reaching their highest potential."
Oh man! Is that cool or what? Somebody finally putting coliberation in context.
That someone is named Michel Bauwens, of the The Foundation for P2P Alternatives. Since I discovered his post on coliberation, he and I have been exchanging emails at a rather furious clip. The more we have corresponded, the more correspondence we seem to be finding - shared understandings in vision and practice, shared hope for shared promise.
Dr. Barry Sinervo, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has observed a three-way mating cycle in a species of North American lizard and a distant relative, the European common lizard, separated by 175 million years of evolution, making Rock-Paper-Scissors maybe the oldest game in the world.
"Some of the male lizards," writes James Ryerson in last week's New York Times Magazine, "(call their type 'rock'), use force, invading the territory of fellow males to mate with females. Others ('paper') favor deception, waiting until females are unguarded and sneaking in. Still others ('scissors') work by cooperation, joining together to protect one another’s females.
"I think it’s a philosophical point," Sinervo comments. "You have 'take by force,' deception and cooperation. Each beats one but not the other. It’s the way the very fabric of social systems is structured."
Rock-Paper-Scissors - the very fabric of social systems. Who knew?
Did you know that there's a veritably amazing collection of movies, online, free, courtesy of the voluminously virtual virtues of the Internet Archives? Well, did you?
What does this have to do with fun and games, you might ask. Search, and you will find. For example, this one, part of their Open Source Movie collections, is from Don Ratcliff's study of children's free play in a hallway and on a playground. He explains "Video recorded on an elementary school playground, for comparison with video data in the same school's hallway, conducted for my dissertation research. To access a similar video clip of the hallway, go to http://www.archive.org/details/playground1. Four other video clips of the hallway are available by changing the last digit in the address to a 2, 3, 4, or 5."
Ratcliff's complete dissertation can be found here.
"You need a table, lubricated with washing-up liquid and water, and a disc."
And thus we learn about yet another Junkyard Sport-like event: Tabletop Frisbee-spinning. True in all its dimensions to the nature of sportish events, it involves timing and grace, agility and focus, and has the potential to astound.
It's a Funcast already at last! From my keynote address at the Atlanta NASAGA conference. FYI. Thinking about games and magic, I came up with Half-Belief. And said something like:
Like magicians with their tricks, we, with our games transform reality – changing a group of business executives into a Polynesian choral society, or to a group of egg-safety engineers, trapped in a burning spaghetti factory with thirty minutes to get two dozen eggs safely out the third storey window.
Masters of illusion, you ride the line that separates the two halves, the believing from the doubting. We get people to half-believe in the truth of what they’re playing. While helping them separate the magic from the miracle, play from for real, contest from context.
We are artificers of shared illusions, architects of half-belief. Masters of jocular inscrutability.
What do you know about this "Adult Recess" thing? And, if you forgive me for asking how often do you get it?
And when you do get it, do you think it's what this article in Natural Awakenings Magazine means when the events planner says she gave herself a very adult recess, once a week, at least, for the last eight years:
"I’ve made a weekly date with myself to do what feeds my soul. I start with a fun-to-do list that changes as I change. As I add things and cross things off, it punches through the inertia of 'Someday I’ll do that when…' It feels good when I look at how much I’ve done. And I can always repeat special treats. There’s no set time. I just fit it in each week.
"Nothing I do depends on another person’s schedule or preferences. This is guilt-free soul food and mind candy that inspires and makes every day more productive. One afternoon I splashed around acting silly at the water park. One week I recorded my favorite television show and gave myself a manicure and pedicure while I watched all five episodes. I like to make appointments with friends on the other side of the world simply for the joy of conversing. On an Alaska tour I visited the Anchorage library to look up things just for fun, not because I could use them at work. My latest craze is sudoku number puzzles."
Or do you mean the kind of adult recess that this article describes as taking place for 15 minutes every working day when " workers at Masel in Bristol, PA., (are) engaged in outside water-balloon tosses and basketball...indoor remote-control-car races, electric-slide dances in the lunchroom, and games of Simon Says."?
Or maybe this kind of recess like what my friend Christopher Noxon describes in Rejuvenile? The Capture the Flag and Kickball kind?
Or are we talking about the whole thing? The entire range of the Adult-perpetrated Recess-like, actual time spent doing only what you want to be doing experience?
How often do you get to take recess? Adult recess. Of any kind. Enough? Alot? Ever?
Did you ever know professor Randy Pausch at CMU? Apparently, he did a lot of work with creating virtual reality systems/games. Pancreatic cancer will take his life in a few months, and he gave a "last lecture" at CMU. Here's the whole thing:
President Cohon to Pausch - "Please tell them about having fun."
Pausch - "It's kind like a fish trying to give a talk about the importance of water. I don't know how not to have fun. I'm dying, and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there's no other way to play it."
"I love this analogy Stuart Brown makes — after all his study of the science of play in intelligent social animals as well as human beings. At one end of the play spectrum in animals, there are labrador retrievers; at the other, there are wolves. Human beings act like labs in childhood and wolves in adulthood. But all we are learning about the human brain and body suggest that we are in fact hard-wired to learn and grow, by way of play and pleasure, across our life span.
"How to rediscover play if you've let it slide, I ask? Move your body, Stuart Brown says. Dig up your memories of what brought you pleasure as a child. Take cues from "the experts" — the children in your life today. Do what makes you happy, and what transports you beyond a sense of the clock, your schedule, that deadline — beyond time. And remember, he says, to the accomplished wolves and workaholic perfectionists among us, that while the idea of learning to play might be daunting, it's not rocket science. We know how to play, in good and deep and life-giving places inside us, just by virtue of being human."
The whole notion of childhood as an historical and cultural phenomenon is, in itself, revelatory. Reading Children at Play is to see American children as something like a separate country, with its own government, its own history, its own customs, its own borders.
In a large part, the history of American childhood proves to be a story of borders being constantly redrawn, redefined, reinterpreted. Chudacoff's well-documented and compassionate study shows how children, poor and wealthy, slave and privileged, native and immigrant, surrounded on all sides by adult America, endowed with childlike resilience and endless capacity for passion, have managed to resist hundreds of years of concerted adult efforts to subvert childhood into something other, something safe, predictable and under control.
Children at Play is in many ways a romance. As the book nears its conclusion, and we read about the evermore massive attempts to co-opt children's play, we find our very adult selves hoping against hope that children will once again reclaim their inalienable rights, breaking the shackles of rampant commercialism and overprotective parents so they can once again take up their "quest for independence."
Here, from the end of the chapter "1950 to the Present," Chudacoff gifts us with a ray of hope: "...while media critics and child advocates have fretted about the hypnotic, sedentary quality that television has inflicted on children, there is always the possibility that kids can convert an object as mundane as a TV box into ther own plaything." He goes on to quote a story told by Isabel Alverez. "See, those old television sets used to have the cardboard [backs] with holes in them. The television was on and we could see all of the lights in the back...So we took the cardboard off and put our dolls in there and played that it was the city of Manhattan." Chudacoff concludes: "Kids still find ways to be kids."
In describing his 4-player version of his Major Fun Award-winning game, Lost Cities, master game designer Reiner Knizia responds, with admirable intelligence and insight, to an all too often asked question:
"Frequently I get asked about my favourite game. There is no favourite game (except always the one I currently design), because games are not absolute. Games live through the players, and for different groups and occasions, different games will be the right choice. Games provide the platform to enjoy an exciting and stimulating time with other people. I rejoice the ever-new challenges that players with different personalities introduce to the games. For me, the interaction with the opponents is the most important stimulus of play."
Mark Applebaum writes about his Sound Sculptures: "The instruments consist of threaded rods, nails, wire strings stretched through a series of pulleys and turnbuckles, plastic combs, bronze braising rod blow-torched and twisted, doorstops, shoehorns, ratchets, steel wheels, springs, lead and PVC pipe, corrugated copper plumbing tube, Astroturf, parts from a Volvo gearbox, a metal Schwinn bicycle logo, and, indeed, mousetraps."
And, in case you wondered, Applebaum appends:
"I play the sound-sculptures with my hands and with a number of different strikers and gadgets including Japanese chopsticks, knitting needles, combs, thimbles, plectrums, surgical tubing, a violin bow, and various wind-up toys, tops, etc. Located in the midst of the sculptures is a mixer and a small rack of electronic signal processors with their associated triggering pedals, mostly junky analog delays, early-era pitch transposers, unnatural reverbs, and the like."
"Brains love information," writes Margaret Richardson, in her column State of Play: Why I Play Games "- finding connections, mapping relationships - and games let you mainline a fat flow of pure, perfected data, all deliberately contrived to be rich with exactly those kinds of interconnections.
"And as you learn, you're given an incredible window into your own capabilities. Games are a test-bed where you can endlessly explore what an extraordinary machine you are. "
Me, I also like to watch my emotions, the play of my passions, the sheer utterness of my abandonment to the fantasy, my total willingness to risk virtually everything. Because then I get to be my own Buddha, learning to observe and accept, with equanimity, in the completeness of the illusion, the genius of its crafting. I like to find myself on the verge of promising my next child to God in return for a red three. And maybe even to laugh.
There's this guy Yehuda, from Jerusalem, who writes a weblog about games. And the guy is a game maven. Let me tell you.
So, just the other day, this guy writes a blog piece titled: Games are not supposed to be fun. Honestly. That's what he wrote. And he has some good stuff to say about games and art and fun, and how easily one can get in the way of the other.
But me, I think that not only are games supposed to be fun, I think fun is a lot more serious than we admit. I think that fun games about serious things can get even more serious than games that aren't any fun at all.
One of the hopefully unintended consequences of the whole sports industry - from physical education and soccer camp to Sports Networks to shoe commercials - is the message that we have the wrong stuff. We have the wrong kinds of bodies, the wrong kind of equipment, the wrong kinds of clothes. In sum, what we have and who we are isn't good enough.
In a way it's a valuable message - one that challenges us to improve ourselves, physically and materially. And for those of us who are motivated by that challenge, it proves to be a remarkably successful path to self improvement.
Unfortunately, those people are in the minority.
For the vast majority of us, the message is: you're not good enough. You don't have the right stuff. You're not made of the right stuff. And you never will be.
And for these people, the only path is consumption. Watch others play sports, eat granola bars and trail mix, drink sports drinks from sports bottles, wear athletic socks and shoes and t-shirts, eat vitamins and subscribe to health publications. Junkyard Sports, Junk Art, Junk Music - these are celebrations of the wrong stuff - of all the fun we can have, the art we can create, the joy we can share with the wrong stuff. With the stuff that is thrown out, rejected. With torn socks and pantyhose and plastic shopping bags, water botles and newspaper and bubblewrap, we can make games of deep and lasting fun, we can make art that makes us laugh, music that makes us dance. We can play we can dance, we can create, all of us together, fat and skinny, English and Hispanic, seniors and juniors, able and labeled.
Clive Thompson of Wired writes about an MFA grad student at Rutgers, Tom Russotti, who invented a game he eventually called "Whiffle Hurling" - apparently a version of the Irish game of hurling played with whiffle bats and ball.
In addition to the apparent playworthiness of this game, what struck me was Thompson's perspective on the whole thing, as a games columnist for Wired. He writes:
"After all, we live in a golden age of play. The video-game industry is bristling with innovation: You've got haptic controllers on the Wii, titles like Eye of Judgment merging card-games with computers, and the increasingly strange economic activity in online worlds. Our culture is clearly hungry for new forms of play.
"Yet how many new major physical sports have you played in recent years? Zero, I'll bet. The pantheon of major team-sports -- football, basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey -- hasn't significantly altered in decades.
"So Russotti decided to expand the field a bit. By creating a new sport, he decided, he could level the playing field between athletes. When you join a pickup game of basketball or football, it's always slightly marred by the fact that some of the players will be totally experienced -- making it slightly more dull for the less-expert folks. A new sport wouldn't have that problem."
We, of course, are aware that people are continually inventing new sports as reported so faithfully in the Junkyard Sports News. But Tompson, typical of so many of those who have come to define games as things that happen on a computer, saw Russotti's accomplishment as groundbreaking. Well, for Thompson, and Russotti, it is true enough, groundbreaking enough. And perhaps the same will be true for those computer game players who read this article. I hope so. I hope they pay special attention to Russotti's comment:
"Essentially, were figuring out how to play. And this is, counter intuitively, a big part of what makes a new game so great: You get to explore the intriguing and unpredictable ways that the rules interact."
Yup. That's what it's all about, the fun of new game and sports and Web 2.0 even. Not just the newness, but more the getting to invent them together.
All work and no play makes jack a dull boy goes the saying. And a report by American Academy of Pediatrics says essentially the same thing. And by PLAY, they don't mean structured, adult-organized team sports. They don't mean get smart videos, or so called enrichment activities. What they mean is old fashioned spontaneous free play.
Numerous studies have shown that unstructured play has many benefits. It can help children become creative, discover their own passions, relate to others and have fun. Yes, FUN. Remember that?
Yesterday's post about cooperative sports reminded me about something I've wanted to share with you - a question I've wanted to ask you.
When I was writing a review of quite a sweet little children's game - a race-around the track kind of game - I found myself, near the end of the review, describing, in detail, how to play the game without really competing. I wrote:
My grandkids happened to have a problem with competition. So, we played with only two baby frogs: the "Happy Frog" and the "Sad Frog." One of us would throw the dice, and then all of us would select the eye. We pooled our collective memory. If we guessed correctly, we'd move the Happy frog to the next lily. If we were wrong, the Sad frog would advance. No one "owned" either of the frogs. We were like gods, cheering for the Happy frog when the Happy frog won. Cheering for the Sad frog when she got to move. Sure, sure, we wanted to Happy frog to win. But, in the end, it turned out that the Sad frog won. Which, of course, made her Happy. And us, too.
When I discussed this with the PR person at the game company, and with a family member, I found myself on the wrong end of a surprisingly passionate defense of competition. The gist of the argument (for they both said almost the same thing, as if they had been reading from the same script) being that children need to learn how to compete, how to win and how to lose, because such was the world, and such the path to survival and success. So passionate were these arguments that I wound up having to beg to differ, and I mean beg.
I guess it's because I've followed a different path - a path not of competition, but of differentiation. Rather than predicating my success on being "better than" I've found something close to success by being "other than." Being myself, basically, exploring what it is that makes me unique, and uniquely connected to my world, this one, the one we share.
Recently, I starting writing about collaboration again, online, virtual collaboration, posting articles on a site called "Coworking." And it seems to me that I've found, in this very virtual community, a very large network of people who also are less interested in competing than they are in finding ways to do that which they are uniquely able to do. Creating and following their own paths, looking, not for people they can be better than, but for people with whom they can work together, to create something - a service, product, opinion - that is as true and as different and as valued they value their truths, their differences, their selves.
It could be that my focus on collaboration is as narrow as other people's focus on competition, and that there's a wiser path somewhere that is a synthesis between the two. But, until that time, I thought it might be useful to ask the question: must we compete? Are we failing our kids by not helping them learn how to be better competitors? Do we do our kids injustice by not teaching them how to keep score? Do we help them by teaching them how to get better at losing?
Line up a group of boys (and/or girls) against a wall, three or four rows deep. These players must shuffle from side to side (hopefully en masse) progressing forward one step only when they have shuffled a required sideways distance. The game player stands facing them from a distance of 15m (50 feet) or so with a collection of footballs (soccer, or better yet sponge balls). These he fires one at a time at the advancing hordes of invaders. Any player hit is killed (as explosively as possible) and the game continues until all aliens are killed or until one or more reaches (tags) the firer (and gets to be IT for the next round).
At any rate, it sets me thinking, this game does, about how many more games from the virtual world can find their way into the playgrounds of the world (assuming that there are playgrounds and that children are allowed time to play on them), and vice versa.
The vice versa part, actually, has been a pet fantasy of mine ever since I started designing computer games, back in '81. In fact, a game I developed for Children's Television Workshop, called "Light-Waves," was loosely based on a kids playground game called Streets and Alleys. In the playground game, kids stand in rows and columns with their arms joined. Two other kids play tag. And another kid tells the players to make "streets" or "alleys" - turning 90 degrees and rejoining hands. The idea is for the caller to try to help IT tag not-IT. In my computer version, the bars would turn 90 degrees every time a button was pushed. A light-blob would follow the bars. The object of the game was to guide the blob towards the goal in the center. Then a new array of bars would appear. It turned out to be a fascinating little game. One of my favorites, actually, since it all could be played with just one button. All of which makes me think that there is an actual plethora of children's games that would prove to be virtual fodder for the creative computer game designer, whilst wondering if that very same person could in fact be you.
"We can find new ways to have fun. We can make it our goal to have nothing else but fun. Only fun. Just fun. We can abandon even the agreement to find a game we can all play together. The trust we have established with each other is so profound that we need no longer to aim at anything.
"And so we continue, pursuing this convention of having fun together, until any attempt to decide ahead of time what game we're going to play or not, even an attempt to decide what rules we are going to have fun by, becomes too much of a hassle - unnecessary, in fact contrary to our purpose, in fact impossible."
Here, here, and also here are three parts of a clear, succinct, and even illustrated guide to eleven different checker games. Yes, that's right, eleven. Probably more if you think about combining rules. About which is something I would definitely urge you to think.
Let me tell you why this is so important to me. Years ago - o, maybe 30 - I held a checkers class in a prison in Pennsylvania. It was going to be a class about a lot of different games, but the residents (ok, inmates) weren't allowed to have cards or dice and checker sets were readily available and/or easily made. So, anyway, I decided to teach them different ways to play checkers. This was a major shock for many of them - that there was in fact more than one way to play checkers. And a major opportunity for me to start a dialogue with them on starting dialogues with each other - around rules, around thinking about the game itself, and not just winning. Because if you start out to play checkers, and the next question is "what kind of checkers do you want to play," then, all of a sudden, the relationship between the players becomes more important than the game itself. I mean, the game is still important, believe me you, but making the decision, figuring out what you both want to play, is an act of connection, of communication, of community. Playing with rules, selecting the rules you want to play by, and then keeping those rules, these are the kinds of thing free people do, the kind of thing that people who are part of society, who help to build society, do.
And they really wanted to learn every game I could teach them, every variation. And it was fun.
Jenova Chen's Master's thesis was called "Flow in Games." One result of Jenova's explorations of Dr. Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow was a remarkably gentle, sweetly meditative, eat-everything-in-the-universe game called flOw - which is now, can you believe it, available for the Playstation.
There is something worthy of celebration here - the development of an innovative game, based in no small part on a similarly innovative way of thinking about fun, embraced in some significant part by the commercial world, all in the pursuit of a Master's degree.
Rejoice in your accomplishment, Jenova Chen, as we rejoice in it, your fellow followers of the Playful Path.
This week's FunCast is the first part a chapter in the Well-Played Game called "The Fun Community." It has become an increasingly central part of everything I teach, and, for some, has become very useful in understanding how to design games for mass, multiplayer, online communities.
Here's a bit:
"...The only real assurance we have about the "fun" we can have together is the one we give each other.
The need for community holds true whether we are players or spectators. As a spectator, I want to be able to scream for my team. If the spectator sitting next to me wants to scream for her team, and if she insists that I also scream for her team, the likelihood is that we will wind up screaming at each other. We have to spend more of our time resisting each other than enjoying the game. I want the game to be important. She wants the game to be important. But we both lose our opportunity to relish this importance when the game becomes more important to us than we are to each other."
QuadBall is a sport based on the theories of a brilliant and devoted physical educator named Muska Mosston. Dr. Mosston is the author of the Slanty Line theory that I describe with such enthusiasm in my article on Fun and Flow.
I quote from the site:
"Observing a boy shooting hoops, Muska noticed the consistency where the ball hit the front of the goal rim. He walked over to the goal and pulled on it until it slanted down about 20°. The boy’s next three shots went right through the goal. Muska realized that slanting the goal 20° significantly increased a shorter student’s chances of making the goal.
"QuadBall is based on that 'Slanted Rim' theory developed by the late Dr. Muska Mosston. It's designed to create an environment prone to 'inclusion,' where every child has an opportunity for skill development through experimentation."
The topic for this week's funcast is Kind Fun. That is to say, the kind of fun one would call kind.
As doting parents are wont to do, beloved wife Rocky and beloved I were exchanging dotes about what we thought to be our proudest accomplishments, which, of course, if they can be called "accomplishments," are our kids. And the one thing we immediately thought of, pride-wise, was that both of our kids, when all is said and done, were kind people.
Which led me to thinking about fun, of course, and the kind of fun that has proven to me to be, after all the saying and doing, the most consistently fun. And, as you have probably already surmised, surmising kind of person that you probably are, that kind of fun is the kind kind.
Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets is a celebration of celebration. It is about ecstatic dancing, religious and profane, as practiced throughout history and across cultures.
Ehrenreich begins her exploration with earliest recorded history, from cave paintings to early religion. She writes:
"To the extent that we can only guess at today, the religion of the ancient Greeks was a 'danced religion,' much like those of the 'savages' European travelers were later to discover around the world. As Aldous Huxley once observed, 'Ritual dances provide a religious experience that seems more satisfying and convincing than any other...It is with their muscles that humans most easily obtain knowledge of the divine.'" (p. 33)
I have to quote that quote again: "It is with their muscles that humans most easily obtain knowledge of the divine." Muscle knowledge. Yes. And yes again. Knowledge of the divine. Knowledge of the self, of love, of community. Through the muscles. And dances, like games, are the liturgy.
Ehrenreich, in inviting us back into the dance, is inviting us to abandon ourselves to the celebration of life. She is not trying to be objective. She is trying to reason with us, to give us perspective, to remind us of what it means to join the rhythmic magic of ecstatic dance, to caution us against abandoning abandon.
"Nothing speaks more clearly of the darkening mood, the declining possibilities for joy, than the fact that, while the medieval peasant created festivities as an escape from work, the Puritans embraced work as an escape from terror." (p. 145)
But all is not lost. The spirit of ecstatic dance has surfaced again and again, throughout our history, despite our most puritanic leanings. The emergence of Rock and Roll, the Beatlemaniacs, the Deadheads, each leading us back to the dance. And most recently, oddly enough, we are finding each other dancing in the stadium.
"So, by the close of the twentieth century, the clash of the athletes was only one part, and for many only a minor part, of the activities and events that made up a game. People went to the stadium for the opportunity to dress up and paint their faces, to see and be seen, to eat and drink immoderately, to shout and sing and engage in the sports fan's equivalent of dancing." (p. 237)
No, Ehrenreich is not objective about the whole thing. She is a brilliant, informed, impassioned teacher. She cautions us again and again against the growing isolation and alienation that we have accepted into our lives. And she offers us a perspective, a promise, a gift, an invitation to the dance.
(image found in Lee Stranahan's weblog) Today's FunCast is inspired by a quote from Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith, my friend for over 30 years now, and, as all of my friends, my personal mentor. A play-advocate who has brought more understanding, compassion, scholarship and original thinking to the study of play than Piaget or Huizinga, professor emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania, and author of, among other things, The Ambiguity of Play. The quote: "The opposite of play isn't work, it's depression."
You have to be just a little bit of a rebel if you really want to have fun. You have to be doing something you're really not supposed to be doing. Nothing really bad or hurtful or even really dangerous. Something slightly naughty. A little bad maybe. A tiny bit illegal.
Like playing where you're not supposed to be playing, when you're not supposed to be playing, with people and things you're not supposed to play with. Or playing in a way you're not supposed to. With maybe not exactly the "real" rules.
For some reason, no matter how old you are, if fun is something you really want to be having, you generally have to be doing something you shouldn't be doing, really. That's how you get to the liminal spaces, at the edges of acceptability, predictability, respectability.
So when people talk about bringing fun into the workplace or places of learning, it's always just a little bit threatening, a little bit disturbing of the status of the quo.
And in places where such play becomes so threatening that it is rigidly, thoroughly disallowed, where this minor expression of playful illegality is systematically suppressed, you get depression. Deep, thorough, mind- and brain- and soul-numbing depression. In those places, work places, learning places, living places, you get the opposite of play.
Imagine being a kid, 10-15, and spending 3 mornings a week, for two months, learning magic. Imagine, furthermore, that this class is being conducted by a place called The Magic Academy, founded by the famous "illusionist" (a far more accurate description of what magic is all about) Gopinath Muthukad.
While you're at it, imagine how sheer the fun of mastering illusions that can mystify parents and friends alike. Imagine the impact on the kids' experience of themselves, and the world, on their understanding of the rational grounding of all illusions, on their belief in themselves, on their growing mastery of mystery.
Now imagine this school taking place in India, where magic is everywhere. India, where people still astound audiences with the famed Indian Rope Trick. India, where magic and illusion abut religion and science. Read, for example, this paper Illusions and Images of Magic India and Indian Magic
So this is powerful play, this magic. Powerfully informative. Powerfully healing. Stage magician David Copperfield and psychologist therapist Julie De Jean have developed something called Project Magic, specifically for "people with physical, psychosocial and developmental disabilities or those recovering from accidents and illnesses." They have found that magic "motivates the rehabilitation process and develops and improves self-concept while boosting hand, gross motor, problem-solving and social skills."
Magicians, as this article explains, "know an awful lot about how people perceive the world."
A summer camp in magic. What a gift to give a child.
The point is that designating one person as a "winner" is purely a form of virtual reward. In fact, it is a reward that is based on artificial scarcity. In order for winner to mean anything, there have to be losers.
In fact, even when there is fierce competition in games, there is no absolute need for this.
This is a remarkable, and much-needed contribution to our understanding of play and games, this distinction between the idea of the "winner" from the idea "achievement." Yehuda continues:
You can easily give out the label "winner" to all people who achieve any sort of success, without sullying the word. You still don't give it to people who haven't achieved anything; effort and achievement still count. Competition still counts. You just change the nature of "winner" from one that requires all others to fail to one that measures personal achievement regardless of the success of others.
There are powerful and clearly r/evolutionary consequences for those who follow Yehuda's redefinition of winning. The same thoughts that led me to writing The Well-Played Game almost 30 years ago. And Yehuda carries them forward with the kind of depth and insight that might very well inspire us, ultimately, to remove the artificial separation between winners and losers, cooperation and competition, and to view the field of play for what it is - an opportunity for us to exercise and celebrate our powers.
Spurred by a conversation with Janine Fron of Ludica, I found myself writing an article about the connections between competition and cooperation, in games and everything else. My perhaps most quotable and easily misunderstood quote: "Cooperative games nurture diversity. Competitive games, uniformity."
I hope you have time to listen to today's FunCast. I know how busy you are, and I hate to intrude. But if you can find the time, you might find yourself amused, if not bemused, to hear me say things like:
Busyness is one of those primal problems ground into our very adult and grown-up identities by the way we used to play house and school and now get to do for real.
Remember when you were a kid playing you were not a kid? Remember when you first learned to look busy, and then learned again, and then over and over, since you were a kid growing up, in playground, classroom, office?
Remember how utterly convincingly busy you became?
Well that's the problem. Not time. Not deadlines. It's that we've all become too good at it.
"Players' enjoyment of games depended on whether the games made them feel competent and independent, and, in the case of multiplayer games, connected to other players. Players who enjoyed their experience showed increases in well-being, self-esteem, and vitality after playing, while those whose needs weren't satisfied reported lowered vitality and mood."
My co-inspirer and fellow FunspotterCelia Pearce, adds: "One thing I like about this article is it's saying that most of the studies have been about the potential harms. It also begs the question: who is getting enjoyment out of what? I think some games are actually not that enjoyable for some people, as you know. I hated football when I was a kid!"
It is a great relief to stumble upon this oasis of positivity. My one disappointment is that this article, like so many that have been written in defense of "gaming," is so passionately focused on videogames that it fails to connect with the larger phenomenon of play, in all its manifestations. According to my exhaustive inner research, precisely the same findings related to the enjoyment of videogames is true of all play frames - bowling (speaking of frames), chess, solving puzzles, playing dress-up.
What? Lacks combat? A Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, without fighting? And people like it? And it's fun?
Apparently so.
Allow me to continue quoting from the venerated Wikipedia:
"The lack of levels was also a unique feature in past tales, but the most recent tale has seen the addition of a levels system. Players can kill their livestock, go on safari, and most of all engage into politics. The game focuses on building, research and community. Even more uniquely, players are able to have a lasting effect on the world; the game reaches an endpoint, after which a new Telling begins, which bears marks of the Telling before. Players can also create laws (including player bans) and make feature requests. Compared to other online games, there is also a closer to equal ratio of male to female players, and a high level of civility and generosity, as a result of the difference in focus."
Again, what?!? Lasting effect on the world? Player-created laws? Closer to equal ratio of male to female? High level of civility and generosity?
Is there, then, a reason for hope? Is it, therefore, actually likely that there will be more games like this - games that foster communities of players who actually care about each other, and the world they are creating together?
"a process which is not contained within the game itself"
I found those words in an article called From Serious Games to Serious Gaming by Henry Jenkins: "a process which is not contained within the game itself." Jenkins is trying to explain why a game should be worth playing in its own right, for its own sake, regardless of how educational its purpose. He points out Sim City designer Will "Wright's notion that we might simply annotate a traditional game, providing a series of links to other sources of information which might enhance the game play experience."
I've been trying to express this ever since I first got involved with simulation games. (Which is pretty much my professional lifetime. Which is pretty much.) This whole idea of the integrity and depth and educational value of the experience of play - itself. How when you make kids play a game like "Fraction Bingo" (you'd just about have to make them), you kill both the learning and the fun.
If you happen to be in Woodacre, CA, this coming December (the 2nd, actually), you might consider attending this seminar - so you can meet, among others, Gwen Gordon, author of a quite profound and lightening article: Play: The Movement of Love. Here's a taste:
If we forget to play, we lose our love for life, and loving life is what will save our world, not fearing destruction. We’re desperate to be invited into our joy, into our energy source, the belly laugh, the burst of giggles, wild abundance, bright color and zest for life of play. The laughing Buddha is fat to show that even the most massive bulk can lift off the ground–with a big enough laugh. Laughter is the sound of play and a doorway into play. Right now, wherever you are, put this article down and laugh. Not because there’s anything funny going on, but because you’re free to laugh. It may seem awkward at first, but stretch into it. Get off your spot. You will discover that you can find ecstasy just by moving toward it. Play is the movement of love, and love is what moves the Universe. Never underestimate, especially during a time of crisis, the power of play to move the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever did.
Thanks to the amazing Bryan Alexander for the find.
Ludium I, from the Arden Institute: a center for the study of synthetic worlds demonstrates how the division between work and play is not only artificial, but also detrimental to productivity. Get that? If they experienced such an acceleration of productivity by doing it pretty much all for fun (and pretend money and trophies and stuff), the separation between work and play actually makes work less productive.
This, from the abstract of the final report:
"Ludium I was an effort to develop and prove a radical new paradigm for intellectual gatherings. Abandoning entirely the standard speaker-audience structure, the ludium instead embedded participants in a game designed to generate both tangible output and emotional excitement and satisfaction - fun. It intentionally ignored the distinction between work and play, and sought to test the possibility that professionals engaged in a properly designed game would generate both entertainment and productivity at the same time...A selected group of academics and game designers were formed into five teams to play a competitive game of concept generation. The teams were tasked with developing proposals for using online game technology in university research; proposals were judged by a sixth team, with the best proposal earning a grand prize. In execution, Ludium I strongly confirmed the possibility that work and play can occur simultaneously: participants exhibited and reported very high levels of satisfaction, enthusiasm, laughter, and joy in the course of the event and on into following days, and they also produced a significant body of concrete output."
And they mean significant - an extensive online multimediafied documentary and a 144-page, downloadable, comprehensive report. I mean, it's enough to make you think. Maybe work is supposed to be fun.
The subtitle of Playing with Stuff: "Outrageous Games with Ordinary Objects. " Oddly enough, it wasn't the Outrageous Games that attracted me as much as the Ordinary Objects part.
For example, there's one game that tells you to hang a potlid by its handle somewhere - wherever it can hang freely. And then get a lot of toy soldiers or maybe leggos or something of a similar multitude, and take turns, one at a time, adding a toy, until the lid tilts and everything falls off. A pot lid! Or another where you draw a grid on a sheet of paper, color in a few squares at random, cover the whole thing with salt, and then, using straws, take turns trying to blow away the salt, square-by-square, without uncovering a colored square.
Don't let the upscale design of the book distract you from the wonders its pages can offer the rained-out mind of a 10-year-old. Yes, the print is small and the graphics make it look like it's a book for even younger kids, but the games are positively inspiring, and the use of everyday objects an invitation to ingenuity.
If you like the whole psychology thing, there's an article I write that seemed to me particularly timely, once again. It's called: The Therapeutics of Primal Glee, and it's the text of today's FunCast.
ElizabethVivian Gusson Paley worked as a kindergarten teacher and author of children's books. To read her book You Can't Say You Can't Play, is to be returned to the mind of a child, as understood by the heart of an artist. The author weaves a children's story into the account of an almost painfully democratic attempt to make children's play more inclusive.
Paley discovers the power of rules on children's play. She noted how children responded to being excluded from games - which, at the time, was a rule of play. She saw how profoundly negative, and how long-lasting the pain of rejection could be. And yet, it was almost taken for granted that, even in kindregarten, the unpopular aren't welcome, and that the kids who started the game could keep other kids out. Respecting children and their rules as deeply as her own, Paley authors a new rule, knowing that a rule that seems just and clear and sufficiently universal can actually change the way children play. The rule: "you can't say you can't play."
If you don't appreciate children's stories and being invited to listen in to the rush of interweaving streams of fantasy and actuality, and if you need research results and suggestions for next steps, you're reading the wrong book. For the rest of us, it is a journey through remarkably pure expressions of love and wisdom, fantasy and truth, growth and play - a journey that will teach us and touch us, and all those young lives we learn from and are touched by.
(I added the "and how to make it so" part. I'll explain why before the paragraph is over.)Fun is Good is the actual name of a Rodale Press book by Mike "Maverick Marketing Whiz" Veeck and veteran sports and business journalist Pete Williams, is, as you might guess, an exhortation. To fun and those who want to have it. Exhorting us to do just that, to have it. Now. How? By making it fun.
It's an important, empowering message for anyone who believes that work should be more fun. It tells them: you're right, it should. Therefore go, ye, and make it so.
In the business world, where many of us are still really not sure that it is OK to have fun, or even to look like you're having fun, or even to want it to be fun; fun is often a hard, hard sell. So when Veeck, with all his many successes in minor league baseball, makes it all kind of actually well GOOD to have fun, good even for business, we basically want to ignore him passionately or embrace him with equal passion.
Everyone, in every sphere of human endeavor and society we can imagine, can use a champion like Veeck, a coach who pushes you, pushes you, pushes you to make things fun, to have fun, to be fun, to believe in the bottom-line power of fun.
So we welcome Mr. Veeck, and anoint him with the title of "Defender of the Playful." Another voice for fun. A different voice. A voice that is making itself heard.
There are other games, other ways of playing, other ways to invite fun, and I am certain that as Mr. Veeck continues his explorations he'll have new and better news to bring us about the sheer goodness of fun, and the sheer devotion it takes to make work fun, and vice versa. In the mean time, and in the future, whether we partake or not, we are all a bit better off because of Mr. Veeck's vision and passion.
The article itself is also of the rather remarkable ilk, opening with a quote from Major Fun, himself, and mine, too.
Now that you know what peaked my interest, let me go on to suggest what might peak yours with some semi-random samples:
"Love play is not a competitive game; it has to be fun, interesting and equally engaging for both partners. There can be no winners or losers in interactive play. Something isn’t funny unless it is funny to both parties – and this includes teasing. Each person has to be excited and drawn into the experience. When this is the case, nothing is more stimulating. If, or when, the playful experience isn’t mutual, the play isn’t interactive and may detract from, rather than support, a love relationship..."
"Play gives us an opportunity to turn frustrations and negative experiences into opportunities for shared fun and intimacy. In the context of interactive play, we replace judgment and criticism with humor, and can say and do things that might be awkward or offensive in other contexts. In playful settings we hear things differently and can tolerate learning things about ourselves that we otherwise might find unpleasant or even painful. Play also gives us a positive way to address differences."
"Play is a powerful survival mechanism that supports our ability to surmount life’s hardships and tragedies. Whole civilizations brought to their knees have survived over time by enlisting the force of humor and play to counteract their distress. Deeply experienced emotions can alternate rapidly. One moment we can be in the throes of grief and the next laughing at a ridiculous memory or comment. Such is the nature of primary emotion. Humor and play are respites from sadness and pain but, more than just time out, play also imbues us with the courage and strength to find new sources of meaning and hope."
"For the longest time, games have been considered almost a new form of movie, but that ignores the really interesting opportunities we have in games. Games are in a unique position to bring content consumers into the role of creators.
"In short, this game will engage participants in the creation of their own characters and worlds, and will allow players to eventually enter the worlds created by other players.
"Not only does this participation make sense from the perspective of the players...but from the designers as well - they are now co-creators of the game with the players.
"If the game keeps this universal truth of participation in mind, I believe it will be a runaway hit."
It's what I call "The Fun Community." Sometimes, I also call it "The Play Community," as is my wont. But it amazes me nevertheless, to see the principles I wrote about 28 years ago to describe the dynamics of games, play and community in the world of the flesh become as valuable, if not more, to the virtual world. I know, I know, it's why that very chapter of Well-Played Game, published, mind you, in 1978, was included in Salen and Zimmerman's Rules of Play, and it's what Tracy and Janine and Celia wrote about in their well-researched and visionary article called "Sustainable Play - Towards a New Games Movement for the Digital Age" in which they conclude: "we propose a reexamination of the New Games Movement and its methods as a means of constructing shared contexts for meaningful play in virtual and real-world spaces."
I know I shouldn't be. Natheless, I am both excessively proud, and immoderately amazed.
"Helping people feel just a little more playful, especially if it's connected to their work, or with anything they do that's more typically associated with words like painful, tedious, boring, stressful (as opposed to words like 'fun'), doesn't have to mean giving them a game. Even something as simple as making your documentation more compelling (and even a little whimsical), can make a huge difference."
To which I can't help adding yes, and yes again. Helping people feel just a little more playful is what it's all about, isn't it? Helping them feel a just a little more playful means helping them feel a little more positive and a little more empowered and a little healthier and a little stronger and a little more together and a little more alive.
I was clicking my way through a site called "Singlenesia." Amused and bemused by the "The Barry Bittwister Cabal" and all that it apparently stands for (more later), I conceptually limped my way to a tract called The Way of Fun.
I read it. I laughed. I cried. "Wait a minute. Isn't this something I wrote? Isn't this the very core belief of that which I have publicly proclaimed to be the Playful Path?
And, behold and lo, it wasn't and it was! Written, in apparent fact, not by me at all, but by a seer named "Baba Bar Ran" and prepared by the "Universal Church O' Fun" (whose motto is: "One Faith Fits All"). I found this downloadable, printoutable, foldupable piece of playful pith completely corroborating and confirming, and maybe more.
There are only three steps. Allow me to present Step Three:
"When we achieve oneness with Fun, we no longer need to have Fun or make Fun.
"Instead of doing things for Fun, everything we do is Fun naturally, without effort.
"Do not become discouraged in aspiring to be one with Fun. At first, the experience will be fleeting. Perhaps coming unexpectedly while making Fun.
"With faithful practice, we are able to hold on to the feeling longer and longer. We become Fun for hours - then for a whole day. In time, our entire lives can become Fun.
Here's a good and particularly relevant taste of Nathan McNamara's musings:
"Secondly, when my roommate David joined us, it presented us with a problem. With only 3 people, normal team games like capture the flag would be utterly unfair, because of the unbalance due to the number of people. But the normal 3-player option, free for all, or as the game calls it, “Slayer,” would have been unfair as well because David is not as skilled at the game as myself or Steve. So he would have been killed rather often, and not gotten many kills, and it would have been frustrating for him. And Steve and I would have had too easy a time killing him, which would be boring, but at the same time we would be frustrated that each other was getting easier kills off of hunting David. So both of these scenarios would have ruined the Flow. Doing capture the flag would be too easy and thus boring for one team, and too hard and thus frustrating for the other. And doing normal Slayer would have been both boring and frustrating for all involved. We had to come up with a solution to the situation."
In his Blog on Training, Kevin Eikenberry reflects on a conversation we had, in which I quoted that famed piece of Oaqui wisdom In the beginning, it was fun. Kevin muses managerially:
"Think about the beginning of most anything:
"The start of a new project. "The start of a new relationship. "The introduction of a new product or service. "The time when you first learn something new. "The beginning of a game. "The beginning of a party. "The beginning of a vacation.
"In the beginning there was fun.
"Fun comes at the start from a mixture of excitement, anticipation, wonder, surprise and passion. Often though, like a too-long game of Monopoly, the experience changes, and fun is replaced by a host of other adjectives.
"Why does this profound truth matter to us and how can we use it to our advantage?"
"First, I think that all behavioral scientists agree that evolution has primed young animals to learn from play. That tells us that this constitutes the most deeply embedded and thus energy-efficient way to teach animals new things. And because we know that domestication more or less suspends an animal in a physiologically and behaviorally immature state, this link between learning and play most likely lasts throughout a domesticated animal's life."
I know she's writing about animal behavior. She's a DVM, for goodness sake. But, as a deeply domesticated animal myself, I can only concur as well as agree. Though I think the physiologically and behaviorally immature part can be attributed to the play-youth connection (play and you act younger, look younger). As for playfulness being a deeply embedded way for me to learn new things, it is clear that the connections between learning and play in my life have not only continued, but increased in strength, number and kind:
"Second, whatever else play in adult wild animals might denote, in many cases it signals an animal who has established and protected a territory, found food and water, mated , reproduced and raised young with energy to spare. If this weren't the case, the potential for adult play wouldn't exist in the gene pool. That says to me (and I admit that some anti-adult-animal-play scientists don't agree) that a playful adult possesses more confidence and ability to cope with stressful situations than a nonplayful one."
It has in deed been my observation that a playful adult has more confidence and ability to cope with stressful situations. Or, perhaps even more self-evident, the adult (animal or human being) who isn't playful tends to be more easily stressed and often more concerned about his ability to perform. At any rate, all this coincides both fortuitously and non-coincidentally with last Friday's article Playfulness and the Health of the Herd.
I wrote a new introduction for a webpage called "Journeys on the Playful Path." I liked it so much it actually made me happy. It's not funny or anything, but it captures some essential connection I've been making between playfulness and health and the human experience. So, at least you can understand why I'm quoting myself at such length:
"Playfulness is one of the signs scientists look for when trying to determine the health of a herd of animals. The healthier the animals and the safer the herd, the more they play.
"The same is true of the human herd. Especially herds of children. As long as the kids are healthy and feeling safe, left to their own resources, play is the thing they do.
"Adults of the herd play less, at least observably, because for the most part they are not as healthy and definitely not as safe as they were when they were children.
"Adult human beings are different than the adults of any other species I can think of, in that they can choose to be playful, even when they don't feel safe or particularly good."
And when they are being playful, they tend to feel healthier, safer, almost like they did when they were kids, and maybe even better. And even though they are fully conscious adults and even though they can't ignore the danger, the consequences, the very real lack of safety that is threatening their entire health forever, they can choose to be playful, they can even choose to be playful with their own personal safety. And, simply by playing again, reclaim their health, their well-being, the energy of their youth.
Philip Pullman's article "Common sense has much to learn from moonshine" has earned him immortality in my particular world. The article is about a research report from the University of York that concluded: "that there was no evidence at all that the teaching of grammar had any beneficial effect on the quality of writing done by pupils." As he muses on the meaning of it all (what? the teaching of grammar is unnecessary?), he arrives at some rather delicious observations, especially to those of us who wander a Playful Path. One of my favorites:
"The most valuable attitude we can help children adopt - the one that, among other things, helps them to write and read with most fluency and effectiveness and enjoyment - I can best characterise by the word playful.
"It begins with nursery rhymes and nonsense poems, with clapping games and finger play and simple songs and picture books. It goes on to consist of fooling about with the stuff the world is made of: with sounds, and with shapes and colours, and with clay and paper and wood and metal, and with language. Fooling about, playing with it, pushing it this way and that, turning it sideways, painting it different colours, looking at it from the back, putting one thing on top of another, asking silly questions, mixing things up, making absurd comparisons, discovering unexpected similarities, making pretty patterns, and all the time saying "Supposing ... I wonder ... What if ... "
And then there's this:
"It's when we do this foolish, time-consuming, romantic, quixotic, childlike thing called play that we are most practical, most useful, and most firmly grounded in reality, because the world itself is the most unlikely of places, and it works in the oddest of ways, and we won't make any sense of it by doing what everybody else has done before us. It's when we fool about with the stuff the world is made of that we make the most valuable discoveries, we create the most lasting beauty, we discover the most profound truths. The youngest children can do it, and the greatest artists, the greatest scientists do it all the time. Everything else is proofreading."
Today's FunCast called "Computers and Toy Horses," is a kind of meditation on what I played with and how I played 55 years ago, and what I am playing with now, and how.
Hugh McNally, from Street Play sent me a link to this article by Ana Veviana-Saurez of the Miami Herald. The article begins:
"The street is empty. Even on a balmy winter weekend, exquisite in the way only South Florida days can be at this time of year, the children are nowhere to be seen. There are no bikes, no scooters, no skates, no balls and gloves and pads, none of the toys I've long associated with the first weeks of a beginning year."
"But don't blame the kiddies...."
This article isn't just one of those "where are the games of yesteryear" laments. It is an astute observation of a fundamental change that has gone deep into childhood and the very roots of society. She continues:
"Post-Christmas playtime isn't what it used to be. The change, of course, didn't happen overnight. Playtime's move indoors was gradual and maybe, at least initially, imperceptible. But it was also as steady as the spread of kudzu, and now our children are about to become, if they're not already, the generation of muscular thumbs.
"Tree climbing? Who does that anymore? Hide-and-seek? I can't remember the last time I saw children play what was an all-time favorite game for me when all the cousins got together. Hopscotch, jump rope and stickball -- I suppose these have gone the way of eight-tracks and black-and-white TV shows.
"U.S. factory sales of consumer electronics rose to $125.9 billion, an 11 percent increase over 2004, and while this figure includes much more than stuff for children, it remains a good indication of where we're headed. More and more kids want scaled-down versions of adult cell phones, video cameras and digital cameras.
"No doubt this has the potential to send parents into paroxysms of worry, and for good reason. Hours in front of the screen mean less time in social interaction. Pushing buttons on a control translates into fewer push-ups and exercises. And constant visual stimulation -- well, that can only exacerbate our already short attention spans...."
I especially liked her conclusion:
"Toys reflect the culture, and we are a juiced-up society that can't unplug itself. We've forgotten how to be quiet. We don't know what it's like to be bored. We hate to be away from the constant stimulus that promises to keep us connected 24-7.
"And in the end it's that loss, that inability to be alone with ourselves, that should concern us most."
"Hacking is a playful act. In a primal sense, play is the investigation and experimentation with borders and combinations. It is how children establish a model of their surroundings and how animals explore relationships and social dynamics...Despite early, highly structured approaches to the sociability of computing in mainframe laboratories, computing has evolved a culture of iterative experimental hacking that is essentially playful."
And this, regarding playsh: "It is a narrative-driven 'object navigation' client, operating primarily on the semantic level, casting your hacking environment as a high-level, shell-based, social prototyping laboratory, a playground for recombinant network toys."
Rushkoff on play, the workplace, fun and organizational transformation
Here, courtesy of Douglas Rushkoff, are two more pieces of playful pith. In the first, he talks about how following the Playful Path at work leads to revolutionary change in the nature of the workplace.
Establishing a playful career or company isn't as easy as it looks. It doesn't require expensive consultants, trips to the woods, or the reinvention of a company's culture based on some abstract ideal. But it does mean going against much of what we’ve been taught about competition and survival - not just in business school, but for the past five centuries! Still, just as people have stopped relating as individuals to their brands and opted instead to become members of brand cultures, producers in a renaissance era must come to think of their companies as collaborative minisocieties, whose underlying work ethic will ultimately be expressed in the culture they create for the world at large.
In the next, Rushkoff talks about the fun of work. The inherent fun. And why, for example, a "...foosball table is not the sign of a fun place to work."
In their crude efforts to make work more fun, however, most companies are missing the point. Employers are busy installing foosball tables, hiring chefs, and building gyms for their increasingly disgruntled employees, but these are just ways of trying to make a bad situation more tolerable. (or to coax employees into spending long hours away from home) A foosball table is not the sign of a fun place to work; it's a glaring symbol that work is not fun and employees need a break. Why would they rather be playing foosball than doing whatever it is they've been hired to do?
In today's post, friend and colleague Kevin Eikenberry writes: "We are learning beings. I believe that learning is one of the things that truly makes us most fulfilled in life. And fulfillment brings some amazing fun...We should do all we can to make the learning process more enjoyable and fun. And we need to remember that learning - both the process and the result - is fun itself." It's a key insight, one that I've spent many an hour sharing with everyone I can find - that learning is fun in itself. And that though we should be doing everything we can to make learning more fun, we must affirm and be guided by the knowledge that learning is inherently fun, and perhaps the best thing we can do is make sure we are not standing in the way of that fun.
This is in addition to a wonderful little article he wrote called "Why Fun Aids Learning and What You Can Do About It." Where he takes a more traditional perspective, focusing on what: "you can do to incorporate more fun into the learning you lead and your personal learning." Here are his five suggestions:
Learn with others. Students know that studying together in a group can be a good strategy. This can be true of us as adults too. Read a book and talk about it with others (it works for Oprah!). Get three or four people together to work on your next presentation. Do a project as a team. The results, enjoyment and learning will likely all go up.
Plan for fun. If you are doing a presentation or training, use an exercise to lighten up the session. Warning – don’t do this just for the fun – make sure you connect it to the lessons or message of the session.
Laugh and learn. The next time you make a mistake, laugh about your foible! While you are reflecting on and laughing about, your mistake, think about what you can learn from the mistake. Use the learning and the laughter to ensure the mistake isn’t repeated.
Ask about it. When you’ve experienced something fun take a few minutes to see what you can learn from the fun. What made it fun? How can you repeat those elements in another situation or with other people?
Allow fun in. Things at work may be serious. The lesson you are trying to learn may be serious. But things can be serious and still enjoyable. When we allow fun in we can help the learning process and cement the learning. The efforts you make to lighten the spirit during a serious and important situation can be richly rewarded.
In addition to all this, Kevin is also announcing his "Special Limited Time Offer" in celebration of the publication of his wonderful book Vantagepoints on Learning and Life. A while ago, Kevin had sent me a copy of the book and asked for an endorsement. Here's what I wrote: "Reading Vantagepoints on Learning and Life is like sitting down next to somebody who is genuinely, thoroughly kind. Someone patient enough to listen deeply to you and to himself. Someone honest. Someone fun. Someone you can be quiet with. Someone very much like a friend." It amazes and somewhat saddens me that a book of such gentle wisdom needs to be promoted at all. But Kevin is wiser than I in the ways of marketing, and has gone to great lengths, not only to promote the book, but also to offer an almost overwhelming collection of "free gifts." All in the name of the fun that is learning.
The inevitable convergence of happy minds recently led me to Howard Rheingold's comments on Douglas Rushkoff's new book Get Back in the Box. I've known Rheingold for many years. Rushkoff is a new discovery for me. Both have consistently demonstrated a profound, and extremely pragmatic sense of playfulness. I quote:
"Is fun the key to business success? Why compete for scarce resources when you can cooperate to make them abundant instead of scarce? What lies beyond 'us' versus 'them,' and how do you get there? Rushkoff asks the questions consultants and their clients never dare ask -- and provides hundreds of real-world examples of how people and businesses have answered them creatively, passionately, collaboratively, playfully, and successfully."
What do you think? Is it possible that fun really is the key to business success? And don't you ever so deeply and thoroughly hope so?
Since this is the first posting of the year, I thought I'd make it a FunCast, and devote it to the two things I'd most wish for all of us: Loving Fun and Coliberation.
Here's a fun find I found fun. It's called "Having Fun," and comes to us from the highly articulate musings of author Douglas Rushkoff. He writes:
"No, fun is not frivolity. Well, it can be, but it's not a diversion from reality. It's a way in. It doesn't ignore the starving people, don't worry about that. It just means that if you decide to go help the starving people, you're doing it because it brings you meaning. A certain kind of fun.
"Please, don't anyone else reject the notion of fun until you've at least tried it. Because once you do have fun, you'll want everyone else to have it, too."
Yes, and again yes. "A certain kind of fun." One that "brings you meaning." Precisely the kind of fun I've been pursuing for the past 35 years with something approximating reckless abandon.
Brook Lawder, in her essay "Playgrounds and Classrooms," (Haverford College 2002), writes: "Before elementary school, I reveled in playing outside. I rarely watched television. I loved to read. Most importantly, however, I loved to invent. Creativity enthralled me. Everyday I had a new game invented. These games were not like hide-and-go-seek or freeze tag. They were much less ephemeral. My games lasted days, weeks even. They contained elaborate plot twists and super powers. Everyone on the playground played my games..."
Which reminded me of a 4th grade girl I observed, in a classroom in Philadelphia, about 35 years ago. She was this kind of game-creating, game-leading genius that Ms. Lawder describes herself as being. She used just about every technique I currently teach to the future playleaders of the world. She seemed to know exactly when to change the game, exactly how to keep everyone involved, exactly where to lead people so they'd have the most fun.
Being old enough to know the misfortunes that can befall such young geniuses of play, I read on, self-fulfillingly:
"I can pinpoint the exact moment when I stopped playing, stopped creating and inventing on my own schedule. It all started with homework. Homework was the destroyer of my childhood imagination. Melodramatic, I know, but so are most childhood memories. After pre-kindergarten, I began attending school fulltime. School began at eight in the morning and ended at three o'clock in the afternoon. Upon arriving home, the homework began. Dinner promptly concluded or interrupted homework. After dinner, if the homework was not complete, I sat down to finish the work. Bedtime arrived shortly afterwards. Everyday was like this. Even if I finished my homework early, it was usually dark and I was unable to play..."
My question is: who would actually want kids to stop playing? who would even think it possible? who could possibly think that it's better for kids to do homework than it is for them to be outside playing? The neighbors, maybe?
I quote on: "...One shining light continued to shine: recess. As long as I had recess I could continue my play and exercise my imagination. The older I grew, however, the more the time allotted for recess diminished. Recess became physical education. Such a scientific name for something that should be fun. The teachers were once again able to convert play into a set of rules associated with education. "
No, I think it's something else. Not education. (not even spelled the same way: "Capital-A-small-n-small-t-small-i-capital-F-small-un" vs. "Education"). A force. A perverse, childhood-denying, fuddy-duddy of a force. Not homework. Not educators, even. Something different. Something which I here-with and -by name "The AntiFun - the irrational repression of happiness."
Yes. Yes. A great wrong has been wrung. Less and less time for play. Less and less time for recess. And then recess became PE. And all play vanished. But no, no, Ms. Lawder, it isn't the teacher's doing. Or the parents or neighbors. It's a world held in sway by the AntiFun. And that's what it is.
"Sustainable Play: Towards a New Games Movement for the Digital Age"
My involvement with the USC School of Cinema Television Interactive Multimedia Division began last year with an invitation from Professor Tracy Fullerton to make a presentation about New Games, etc., to students and faculty. That has led to a closer and closer affiliation, especially with Tracy and her cohorts at Ludica. Which, in turn, led Celia, Janine, Jacki, and Tracy to author a most remarkable paper, called: "Sustainable Play: Towards a New Games Movement for the Digital Age." Here's the abstract:
"This paper suggests a revisitation of the New Games Movement, formed by Stewart Brand and others in the early 1970s in the United States as a response to the Vietnam War, against a backdrop of dramatic social and economic change, fueled by a looming energy crisis, civil rights, feminism, and unhealthy widespread drug abuse. Like-minded contemporaries, R. Buckminster Fuller (World Game), Robert Smithson (Spiral Jetty), and Christo and Jean-Claude (Valley Curtain), responded in kind to these environmental and sociopolitical quandaries with their 'earthworks.' As digital game designers and theorists embark upon developing new methods to address the creative crisis in mainstream game production, against a similar backdrop of climate change, a controversial war, political upheaval and complex gender issues, we propose a reexamination of the New Games Movement and its methods as a means of constructing shared contexts for meaningful play in virtual and real-world spaces."
Making the connection between the nature of the Fun Community as manifest by New Games, and the multimediated communities described in the paper, is extremely powerful: virtually packed with potentiating implications for people and media and play. And thanks to this revisioning of New Games, I am delighted, honored, and downright hopeful.
Skip down to the section describing example learning 'moments' with reflections. See for example: "Ben makes lines out of things, anything and everything...a line of toast crusts on the breakfast table, sent with no commentary or explanation. Laurie had noticed her son doing this on a number of occasions, but had not really thought too much about it until embarking on the project. Through documenting her son's play, she began to notice a pattern - lines of toys, lines of dinosaurs - and now toast!"
This is life-changing stuff for parents, and for those of us who believe in the innate value of play.
Today's FunCast is from an article I wrote about what I decided to call The Fun Intelligence. It starts like this:
You know how they talk about all these "intelligences" - like the "creative intelligence" and the "emotional intelligence" and the "mathematical..."?
Well, today I've been wondering if maybe "fun" is one of those "intelligences." Maybe our whole ability to perceive fun and create fun, the whole complex of rational and emotional and physical processes is part of an Intelligence.
You know how you sense something is possibly fun or you sense the fun possibilities...you know how we talk about the spirit of fun or the feeling of fun...
So I'm thinking maybe there is this Fun Intelligence, and that those of us in particular who are particularly gifted with this Intelligence have in fact found it to be central to our survival: socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, spatially, mathematically...
Here
In yesterday's 
Just to note a distinction. For Al Gore, and most people who are trying to address the public, WE is the real target. ME is only there because it is necessary - without it, there can't be a WE. I, on the other hand, have been using the Me-We connection to describe a relationship between two equal parties - individual and group. When you turn my Me/We logo upside down, it's still Me/We. The Me is never in a lesser position, never backwards.
The "Spirit of the Game"
Taking Play Seriously
The article cites Dr Marina Davila Ross, from the University of Portsmouth, who "studied the play behaviour of 25 orang-utans aged between two and 12 at four primate centres around the world." She discovered that: "When one of the orang-utans displayed an open, gaping mouth, its playmate would often display the same expression less than half a second later."
President Cohon to Pausch - "Please tell them about having fun."
Krista writes:
The vice versa part, actually, has been a pet fantasy of mine ever since I started designing computer games, back in '81. In fact, a game I developed for Children's Television Workshop, called "Light-Waves," was loosely based on a kids playground game called 
QuadBall
Imagine being a kid, 10-15, and spending 3 mornings a week, for two months, learning magic. Imagine, furthermore, that this class is being conducted by a place called 
Gopinath Muthukad
"
Humor and Play: Joyfully Overcome Relationship Hurdles
