Adulteration

In my experience I have noticed that adults have the desire for structure in any form or construct, and that play is no exception to this desire. Since the dawn of playwork there has been literature dedicated to the classification and explanation of nearly everything. From The Colorado Paper (Sturrock and Else) to the play types (Hughes) to the playwork principles, to the theory of Loose Parts (Nicholson). And while there are a sea of more examples I could use to illustrate this point those are the most well-known; I assume.

And what all this classification has done is made things clearer and easier for playworkers to understand what it is they are doing, why they’re doing and how to do it. Or does it?
As if it doesn’t then I have to wonder what the point of it all is.
In my experience, whilst helpful, all the literature surrounding play and playwork that I have encountered has often become fuel for argument. Each individual may interpret the work differently, implement it differently or have their own beliefs, approaches and ideas that haven’t been published.
And I think this is because play is a subject of philosophy.

 

The topic I am trying to get around to is adulteration, and that I now realise how different my view of adulteration is to those around me and elsewhere in the play sector. And that only now do I see that adulteration is subject to the same ambiguity that so many other terms are.

The dictionary definition of adulteration is “the addition of impure or inferior materials” which strikes the extrapolation of the term into playwork for me as genius. Re-reading The Colorado Paper (Sturrock and Else 1998) I came across this sentence “There is a danger that the play aims and objects of the children become contaminated by, either the wishes of the adult in an urge to ‘teach’ or ‘educate’, simply to dominate, or by the worker’s own unplayed out material”. And when first on P3 training I was introduced to the concept of adulteration as “controlled or spoiled by adults”.
From what I have been taught there is no doubt that it is adults that adulterate. Yet at what point does an adult begin to adulterate and at which point are they not adulterating?

 

I have seen adults try to “teach” and “educate” children on a play setting, I have seen them control play or push it in the direction they want it to follow but is that all adulteration is? The example that comes to mind most often is of an occasion when I saw a playworker standing, watching children play on a rope swing. And when those three children spotted the playworker they instantly became ridged, they let go of the rope swing and that play in that space at that time ceased. They went elsewhere to do something where that playworker wasn’t.
Surely was adulteration.
Did that playworkers presence not inhibit that play? Did it not have a negative effect on that play frame?
So it is not only our actions that can adulterate but also our presence.

 

From that logic I realised that even when I was trying not to adulterate to the best of my abilities, I was still adulterating with my presence; even when I didn’t realise it. That simply by existing I was adulterating and that as an adult there is nothing I can do about that.
Which unfortunately resulted in me being paralysed for the next three to fourth months of my playwork practice. I struggled being involved in any sort of play with any children, convinced that my presence and actions were adulterating. That the play would be “better” therefore is I wasn’t a part of it. That I was “the addition of impure or inferior materials”.
But over those months I came to realise that, through the minimal interaction I had with children, I was making no detrimental impact on their play. That whilst, by existing, I was adulterating, I was doing no harm. That although it is inevitable that I will adulterate, that there is a distinction between adulterating as an adult (which is inevitable) and adulterating as a playworker (which is not).

 

I think adulterating as a playworker comes from being more or less than a player. More than a player being leading and taking over the play or expecting outcomes. Less than a player being putting a stop to play (which I admit has to be done in some situations however rare they may be), reducing the possibility of more possibilities (Stuart Lester) or simply refusing to interact all together. As are we, as playworkers, not the most diverse loose part of all? With the most diverse uses and the most infinite of interactions?
And being a player (neither more or less than one) comes from Depth. But that is a concept to write about another time.

Rough Thought on Play Wants (Part 2)

It didn’t go; in fact it’s worse than ever.

For play not to be innate goes against the very core Principles of Playwork and everything I’ve ever been taught about it.

Heck the very first Playwork Principle states, and I quote “The impulse to play is innate”.
And it stands to logic that it is innate.  Yet at the same time it’s such a big concept that I wouldn’t know where to begin. I think I’ll explore the concept of it not being innate first and then let you guys find the flaws in what I’ve said and what I’m probably about to say.
I use the word happiness in its most general definition, that being any form of positive emotion.

 

At the moment, however at war with myself as I am, I think that in the wider sense, in the practical field of Playwork, the concept of play not being innate makes little difference. For it to be innate or not doesn’t challenge the importance of play or how to go about supporting and facilitating it. It just challenges the origins of such behaviour.
On that note, if such a train of thought was to be followed and play was considered the method by which we seek positive emotion, following out first good feeling as a foetus or baby. It could be said that not only are there infinitely more types of play than previously conceived (as now anything that makes us happy is a form of play) but also; that play is nurtures means to natures end. Nurture here referring to anything that isn’t biological.

But on that thought play could be innate, a natural process that is only triggered upon our first good feeling. Much in the same way that puberty doesn’t occur until later in life. The understanding of biological processes that don’t occur from birth could rectify my conundrum.

Yet my mind remains unsatisfied.

 

So now potentially Play Wants are even more abundant and important than originally thought. The Play Need is happiness and play itself is a biological trigger that activates after our first experience of positive emotions; only to expand and evolve as nurture increases in influence.

 

Play is the means by which we seek happiness. That much I’m sure of.

 

 

 

 

Rough Thought on Play Wants (Part 1)

(this was written 11/12/13)

 

Recently I’ve had a bad back, it’s nothing new. I get them from time to time, a result of my unnecessary height. But logic tells me that somehow this back ache is also perhaps due to the children who are often attached to me, or jumping on me. I don’t have anything wrong with giving piggybacks or shoulder rides, if that’s what the children want from me then that’s what they’ll get; utilise me, use me, I’m a loose part etc. etc…

However this back ache has triggered a thought, and that thought has triggered a question, and that question has festered in my mind; and now I’m an insomniac as well as having a back ache. Just to clarify it’s not my back that’s keeping me up; it is the thought.

And the thought is this (in its simplest form);

Children do not need piggy backs, they want them. But they need play. Yet a piggy back is their form of play in that moment in time.

The thought then expanded;

Therefore there must be a distinction between what is needed in play and what is wanted.

From that thought of a distinction between what is needed and what is wanted in Play I turned my mind to the concept of Play Needs. I think that to identify a Play Need would be unproductive as a result of the ever-evolving nature of play. That what would be easier would be to just ensure that as many Play Needs could be accessed as possible at any one time i.e. loose parts.

Still with that opinion, but including with it this new thought not of Play Needs, but of Play Wants, I looked again.

A Play Want is thus not essential to the play process, to not facilitate it may end a specific form of play, yet the play itself will still exist. However with this definition, a Play Need that is not facilitated will end the play process; that whatever that need is it is essential to the existence of Play. That is not to say that one eliminates the other but that the two co-exist, that there are both Play Needs and Play Wants.

So I guess what are constantly evolving are the Play Wants and not the Play Needs. I think of it like this, the need to eat, to drink and to sleep do not evolve. We will not suddenly evolve a new way in which to sustain our bodies. But the want to build a fire, the want to have a piggy back or build a den will, can and does evolve.

So the question becomes; what is it about Play that we need? That is under the assumption that everything else is a want and is thus not “essential”.

My initial thoughts about what it is about Play that we need stemmed from reading Marketta Kytta’s (2004); the thoughts; the factors, being Mobility and Affordances.

Yet without Affordances one can still run through the wasteland with their Mobility. And without Mobility one can still access the Affordances near to them. And without both Mobility and Affordances one can still play with those around them. Even then if you have neither Mobility nor Affordances, nor people with which to play then there are still ideas and emotions to play with; albeit it in the most restricted sense.

However then we enter the realm of Play Deprivation, something which this writing is not in the subject to address. However it is worth noting that along the way play stopped. So somewhere within the nooks and crannies of those words is the possibility of identifying a Play Need.

Now swimming blindly in the ocean of thought that is play, it would seem wise to use Affordances and Mobility as an anchor with which to continue our search for a Play Need/s, for the very essence that makes play possible.

In some space between having both Mobility and Affordances and in having nothing and being deprived, there is a point in which play stops. Potentially it is a process that causes it to stop or that in some way it fades away; much in the way the sun sets. However I can’t see a way of identifying a process by which it fades away without before identifying the nucleus on which the process is based.

Perhaps it is a question of freedom. Not referring to the ability to move from one place to another but referring to the way in which other people command us. To be free is to have no master. In theory with freedom comes the ability to do what you want without consequence and to me that sounds like a state in which play would be fruitful. Yet it is merely an ideological thought as are any of us truly free?  

Admittedly this is deep, profound stuff, following the works of Rudolf Steiner and Albert Camus; but worth exploring in our quest for a Play Need.

In everyday life I think of who we are commanded by, who is it in our lives that has influence over us, who’s orders we follow. Parents, managers, police, all agents of socialisation in fact and even friends. But from a child’s position the list must seem endless. From all angles people are telling them what to do, they can say no to friends (some of the time) but on the whole everyone around them is an adult and has some level of control over them. Teachers, parents, neighbours, police, bus drivers, shop staff, etc.

But for arguments sake lets imagine a state in which you are above these agents of control, or better yet, they do not exist. Even then, do we have freedom?

If one has religion then they are a slave to their God; they are not free in that sense; yet they can still play. Just because you worship a deity or deities does not mean that you’re incapable of play; that very thought is preposterous.

However are any of us truly free? Are we not all at the end of the day a slave to Time and as such all condemned to death? The point being that as none of us are truly free, in that we are all commanded in one sense or the other, in its rawest, by time and that our level of freedom is limited always. But that even while having this limited freedom we can still play. And more importantly children, who are commanded by parents, teachers, laws, society, time and a load of other things, can still play.

So it cannot be a question of freedom, as none of us have it in the first place. Not there will we find a Play Need.

But again (Not including the example of Time) the more “Freedom” we have, logically, the more lucid play can be.

So if the trigger that makes Play possible isn’t physical (Affordances and Mobility) or an idea (Freedom), then perhaps it is an emotion? I can think of no other category with which to follow.

Obviously it must be something that is experienced during play, boredom for instance would not be a good place to start? Or would it? I have known cases when children have told me that they are bored, yet they have not left the play setting. As much as my intuition can guide me I would say that they remain because they want to play, and that boredom is thus a state when one is not playing.

So with this identified the opposite of boredom must be a state in which play does occur. At a guess I would say that the opposite of boredom would be excitement.

The key point here being that boredom is a negative emotion and now we have established excitement as the positive alternative. Yet excitement is not our Play Need.

Yet with excitement not being our Play need what is? Indeed in positive emotion logic stands to say play can flourish, so if herein lies the nucleus essential for play to exist, the trigger for its being, the core of such positive emotion must be out Play Need.

And the core of positive emotion is happiness.

Happiness? It sounds so cliché, so obvious. Too obvious in fact, it can’t be right, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense to me. In the depths of depression people are not considered playful.

…

If this is taken as fact, as now after careful thought I do. We can acknowledge play as being positive, which it is. Yes there may be the question of the Dark Side of Play, but I think that to play in happiness is to also play on the brink of happiness, and no doubt one person’s fall from happiness can cause another to rise in the state from happy to happier; however cruel that may sound, truths are truths.

Now if we bring back the idea of Play Wants, those which are none essential to Play and take them into consideration with the idea that the Play Need is happiness we come to an interesting conclusion.

Consider Play Wants, them now referring to all and every type and degree of Play; with the Play Need just being a degree of happiness. So why is it that we facilitate this infinite number of play types for children? If the Play Need is a degree of happiness why do we facilitate such infinite numbers of Play Wants? Why else other than for the fact that they enjoy it, that it results in positive feelings. And with the core of positive feeling and emotion being happiness the Play Wants become more important than first conceived.

They may not be the trigger necessary for plays existence or the seed from which it stems but that they cause positive feeling is a vital point as now a continuum is established:

Happiness results in Play Wants and the indulgence of Play Wants results in happiness which in turn stimulates the drive for more Play Wants and so on and so forth…

So despite there being the distinction between Play Needs and Play Wants it seems they are just as essential as each other to the survival of the continuum. And if my back has to be sacrificed to the survival of that continuum so be it.

In the broadest sense of the term; play is the pursuit of happiness.

The only remaining question I can currently think of is what came first, the chicken or the egg, the Play Want or the Play Need. If this continuum exists then it must have had a beginning. And even if it doesn’t exist I still find it helpful in terms of my own playwork practice. I would think it was the happiness (just a guess of logic) which came first and then began the cycle. If a Play Want is driven by happiness then that is that, but happiness can be caused by more than just the indulgence of Play Wants. But where then did this initial happiness come from?

Well babies always crying once they’re first born so it’s not there. I would think that it was given to us by the previous generation, by our parents. Whether by a funny face, a pat on the back or a warm hug, whatever action that gave us that first good feeling began the cycle of infinite possibility, of the infinite ways to Play. Or perhaps even further back, in the suspended comfort of the womb.

 

 

 

So under that assumption is Play innate?

That’s a big question I didn’t mean to unlock. What I mean is that it is natural to want to feel good but is the urge to play innate? Or is it just the cycle of receiving and seeking positive feeling? A cycle that we begin and follow but an incredibly young age?
I’m not saying it’s not innate, don’t shoot me, it was just a thought I had and found it intriguing.

I’m going to stop there and hope that my insomnia is gone…

Carpet Squares

Today I made modification to the shanty town; that is still going well on the playground. The shanty town itself is basically a very large wooden setting. Built of pallets, beams and other loose parts the children have slowly taken into it, it takes up a large space in the playground.
And so far it has gone down a treat, I spent a couple of days building it (while we were closed) so the children didn't see me building it. And have changed the basic design from the one I built last year. I focused more on actual dwellings in building last years shanty town but this year focused on it being more of a setting that could be moved through. The ground floor is full of twists and turns, dead ends and hidden entrances that I struggle to fit through and can never seem to navigate even though I built it(unlike the children). The first floor is a series of roof and walls, with a slope, beam bridges and trapdoors leading to the lower floor. And the second floor consists of various platforms that the children jump from at great height.
And of course the children are able to built, destroy, inhabit etc. this space to their hearts content.

I could speak about that for ages, and on modifications for even longer. But todays thought was on a much smaller modification I made to the setting as a whole. That being that as the weather made a turn for the worse and as the whole town is made of pallets they inevitably become quite slippery. And as many of them have become very well calibrated to the space and evermore daring when it comes to the jumps and gaps they traverse, I do not want them to fall from a height of ten feet at the lowest.
So my modification was to nail squares of carpet on the points where the children jumped from, and landed at. It worked well and I tested each jump and found that their was more than enough grip. But standing on one of the highest points I looked out at the shanty town and saw all these squares telling me where to jump and where to land. And I realised that in fact my modification was quite prescriptive and no doubt would influence where the children jumped and landed.
I stand firm in my opinion that it was necessary and right, the pallets were slippery and posed more of a danger than a risk. But nonetheless I'm aware that it was also prescriptive; despite the fact that the points where I hammered in these carpet squares were the points that I had observed children jumping and landing at the most.

It made me think that even though my modification managed the risk in the spaces most used. That it didn't nothing to add grip to the jump and land points that have not been used or found yet. No doubt the children will get bored of those gaps and will find, invent or create new ones. Yet I have done nothing to combat the slipperiness of those pallets yet to be jumped from and landed on.

It was a reminder that I can only respond to play as it is, not as what it will be or could be.

A Play Memory Re-visited

A moment I have been thinking about for quite a while was a couple of weeks ago on The Land. It was a day when a child was trying to throw foam on the fire and another, who I'll refer to as Jack was cursing like a witch. I had been playing with a third child with the wooden sword I'd found; he was cutting off my legs.

Jack had shouted me over to have a look at his leg after coming out of the office. I had a look at the bruise and asked him where he had hurt it. He told me it was in the shanty town (a big wooden den/maze/setting that I'll hopefully write about at some point) and then told me to follow him so he could show me where it was. He showed me and then we went separate ways and I carried on playing with the third child. But on the way there Jack noted that the old sandpit had gone. He asked where it had gone and told me that he'd liked playing in it when he used to come. I pointed out the other sandpit down the bottom and he started to reminisce about filling up buckets with sand and water.

Which leads me to twenty minutes later when Jack approached me again and told me to close my eyes. I had no idea what he was going to do or where he wanted to take me but I closed them anyway, fearful that he would just punch me in the nuts and run. He led me on the perilous journey from the top of the Land, down the hill, over the bridge and across the woodchip. He led me over a good beam and then told me to open my eyes.

We were standing at the sandpit down the bottom and after finding a shovel and bucket he began to re-enact his play memory with me by filling the bucket up with sand. I went to find another bucket to fill up with water so he could add that to the mixture. He poured the water in and I went to get more, always making the sure the mixture was wet but not drowning. I got some more and then we swapped, I began shovelling the sand into the bucket, which was big and black, and Jack went to get water.

When he came back the first child came over and asked what was going on, Jack explained and this child asked if he could join in. I found another shovel as the two both shifted sand and I went to get more water. This was all in about five minutes and then we found we had too much water, so I moved sand to catch up while the others decided how much water to add making the mixture right. Now the third child (who was a lot younger) came over and helped too and once full Jack wanted it all to go into the brook. I helped carry the bucket/tub out of the sandpit with the first child and they started putting it in.

 

By now I had begun removing myself from the play, The third child's presence had replaced me and the play had evolved. They continued to throw the sand into the brook and only when observing from a distance did I realise the significance of what I had been a part of.

 

That being, that in many other settings Jack, the first and the third child would have all been banned from the space. Jack for his swearing, The first child for trying to put foam in the fire and the third child for whacking staff with a wooden stick.

And had that been the case their play would never have been able to evolve and change and Jack would never have been able to re-visit that play memory that was birthed on the same space. The same play memory that acted as a play sun (which I'll also hopefully write about at some point) for both the first and third child.

It was nice to know that the setting had both created a play memory and allowed it to be re-visited, and that Jack wanted me to re-visit it with him was flattering.

 

And that's my pondering for today.

Swearing

It is likely impossible that we will ever know the origins of spoken language, nor of the common dialects from which most of the world’s languages descend. It is equally unlikely that we will ever know when language was first adapted to a written form; the birth of reading and writing, of letters and literature.

The process itself of creating written language must have been an incredibly complex and testing one. To find a symbol for a sound, visualising thoughts in ways never before seen; logic suggests that the first written languages were compiled of mostly pictures, direct representations of what was being described. But again it is doubtful we will ever know.

What we do know though is this; the oldest known record of written language is of the ancient Sumerians and is around 5000 years old. And that whether spoken or written, language was a giant leap forward in the human ability to communicate with one another.
Think, as social animals it is imperative to our survival to be able to be social; naturally we are pack animals. Every day, in all aspects of life we communicate with one another, it may be verbally, written or through our body language and both insanity and depression have been documented as a result of prolonged seclusion from social interaction.
All three methods of communication are also evolving and always have been. It is theorised that the approximately 5000 languages spoken today all descended from around 20 languages and have been evolving since. The meaning of words also change, the most obvious example being gay, initially referring to a state of happiness now refers to sexual orientation. And on that note orientation used to mean, facing east. And words also fall out of use, pleb was a 19^th century slanderous term used against the upper classes but now refers to fool, and I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say it in either context.

The argument I am getting around to is that swearing is just another form of communication. And even that is giving it too much credit; it isn’t another form of communication, words that are deemed “swear words” are just that, words. To swear once meant assuring seriousness to a cause and in its most intense referred to “swearing an oath”, the breaking of which could result in death. Yet now a “swear word” is a sound or written symbols or a form of body language that is seen as taboo.

But why? What makes a word a “swear word”, what turns that sound or symbol or action into taboo? Furthermore what is the outcome of preforming these taboos? And what is the difference between the word cunt and the word tree? Both are comprised of four symbols, each with their own sound, compiled together to make a distinct sound with distinct meanings. Breaking it down like that seems to make its taboo status trivial but its status remains just that; a taboo. But again I ask, why?

I place the blame on social constructs; those things that have only the meaning that we place on them (i.e. money). Yet such negativity towards an evolution of language does not come from an individual’s personal distaste. If I decided that seaweed was a “swear word” that would not make it so, even if the mention of it caused me offence. Just because I didn’t like it wouldn’t make it a “swear word”, my view on seaweed wouldn’t count for shit in the worldwide opinion of the stuff.

And I believe the reason is this, we are conditioned as children on the rights and wrongs of language. And that regardless of the evolution of language as we grow, we are taught and told as children what not to say. And this is done because our parents, teachers and other agents of socialisation are as susceptible as the rest of us to these social constructs.
And as my argument broadens the secret villain is revealed; society, culture and civilisation at large. Not in the Marxist sense that the bourgeoisie aim to stifle our proletarian expression or any such thing but that the outcome of civilisation and society is a large number of people striving for similar goals and who hold similar norms and values; to quote Agent K in Men in Black “A person is smart. People are dumb”.
I believe that swearing, or the taboo status of certain words, is a matter of consensus; and that society is dependent on consensus. If everyone had their own thoughts and ideas and pursued them in their own way there would be no society or culture. Think of teamwork, if four architects were tasked with drawing up a new corporate headquarters and they each had their own conflicting design, location and materials in mind, chances are the job wouldn’t get done.

Yet the kink in the great chain is this; that we all swear. We all do it, some more than others but that’s irrelevant, the point is everyone swears at one point or another. But if the consensus says that swearing is bad, why do we do it? Exactly because consensus says it’s bad, that’s why.

 So despite the fact that we all swear, it remains a value within society not to swear. And it remains a taboo due to this false value we all seem to place on it, even though it is simply an expression, a symbol, an evolutionary development in our ability to communicate with one another.

In terms of playwork that is why we should let children swear, as it is just a word, ultimately it means only what we decide it means. Furthermore this idea of false consensus, social construct, and individuality within society is not playful, they’re very much adult terms and adult values in the sense that no child has ever come up to me and wanted to talk about Marxism or social constructs.

 And as playworkers we acknowledge (or should have acknowledged) that the existence of our jobs is also an acknowledgment, an acknowledgement that there is a lack of adult free space in which children can play. Having acknowledged that we would by hypocritical to bring with us adult norms and values, such as don’t swear.

Albert Camus, Rene Descartes, the Universe and Suicide

I've been thinking about the fundamentals of what we know to be true lately, about the things we know are fact and about the things we cannot doubt. It began when I returned to Albert Camus and considered his final words yet again; "The struggle to reach the heights is enough to fill a man's heart". And whilst an optimistic ending to an overall pessimistic book it left me asking, what are those heights?
If the strive towards "the heights" is enough to add meaning to life where there is no God. Then for sure those heights are fundamental to the humans races survival. Those are the very things that prevent the mass suicide of all those who do not believe or follow a God/s. So I pondered on what Albert Camus meant by those words, if the heights were enough, then what were they? Was there some ultimate goal we can reach, is there a height above all others. I think not. The conclusion I came to was that the heights that we strive towards, and which add meaning to our lives, are those set by ourselves. Influenced by every interaction, force and social concept we come in contact with; they are each personal and distinct. Furthermore I figured that once reached these heights we set ourselves become void. That one would either have to repeatedly set a new height or one impossible height to give meaning to his or her life, but just possible enough that it could be slowly chiselled away at.

Inevitably this lead me to question my own heights, my own meaning in life. If we are but a series of inexplicable accidents and coincidences spanning back though the ages; sentient live composed mostly of air, plus particles electro-magnetically charged together is there a meaning, is there a point? I don't think so, not that I thought my way into depression! But it did make me think about how insignificant I was, in terms of the country, the world, our solar system  and the universe as a whole. Even if our entire planet, or our entire solar system perished at this very moment. It would not make any lasting impact on the universe. Our whole solar system is as insignificant as me; as insignificant as the thoughts I write.
And this made me consider the futility of suicide (not that I was suicidal), it made me realise that my death would accomplish no more than my life. So I might as well keep living (as might we all) I might as well find the heights I wish to follow and strive to reach them.

Yet every height I looked at I couldn't follow. Everything I saw I began to question, and I saw futility in things I never used to. So sought out to find what I could know, that which I couldn't doubt. I wanted to find a truth that was true no matter what questions I asked my self. I wanted to find a fundamental fact that I could build my heights from. So logically I turned to Rene Descartes and his Discourse on Method and I cannot help but agree with his conclusion. I have tried to find flaws in his words, tried to find a foundation truer than the truth but I cannot.
"I think, therefore I am" Cogito ergo sum.
That I think proves that I exist, and that is the only thing we can know without a doubt. And whilst enlightening it was not helpful in the construction of a meaning for life.

But what it did do was make me think about the fundamentals of life, of our world and the universe. I did not question the truth of these facts I merely pondered on the implications were they false.
For instance, what if the colour green (which we know is green) was actually black, and that black was green. Imagine a world where that fact was false. Hair colour would be different, likely resulting in the population of the world being completely different. And those people who weren't born wouldn't invent the things they did. Would leave in the summer survive having absorbed all the suns ray, or would it be a world without leaves? Or a world in which leaves a fundamentally different? The gardens of the world would be different and the Statue of Liberty would be far more ominous.

Or consider a world where the value of 2 did not equal 2. What if 2 equalled 3 and 3 equalled 1. That would make 2+2=6 and would make the value of 11 equal 7, yet 7 would still equal 7.
It would change the way we measured everything from millimetres to the size of our galaxy. It would change Pi, Plank's Constant, architecture, primary school curriculum, and currency.

The point is the even if one were to change the slightest thing we consider fundamental, it would change everything. And then my mind finally turned to play; and try as I might I cannot question how fundamental it is. We have seen what happens when people do not play, that whilst they survive they are not whole. That is not to sound derogatory but would play exist is it weren't important? If it weren't innate, if that it is?
And on thinking of play I was reminding of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. That we can either know a particles velocity or it's location, but never both. That the very photons we use to view a particle move it. And like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle I think we can never truly understand the fundamentals of play, the Cogito ergo sum of play, and enjoy it at the same time.

I think that on the day we truly define play, it shall die.
Play is beautiful even in it's flaws.

And finally, if "Play is the means by which we seek happiness" as I believe it is, then I think I have found a conclusion. As we all seek happiness (no single being is drawn to the pursuit of depression) as humans, we all want to be happy. And if we all want to be happy, then maybe I was wrong. Maybe there is a universal height we all strive towards, that is it just the means by which we strive towards this universal height that varies.
Perhaps I have found that height Albert Camus wrote of, which only leaves one question. What's my play?