I'm reading my Socioemotional Development Psychology textbook right now - the chapter on sadness. There's a bit about how humans are actually one of the only species that cry when we are distressed. Other species' versions of crying are usually distressing wails and calls, but no tearing up as we do. Some psychologists propose that crying is a habit from early life that we can't seem to kick. Crying is instrumental when we're young because we need to let our caregivers know that we're hungry or uncomfortable, lonely or just needy. But as adults, your words, facial expressions and demeanor suffice. Another example of something we carry over from childhood, despite it's relative uselessness, is play. Adults of other species are also rarely seen fooling around.
Adult play was such a strange concept to me before I read this passage. Not because I don't do it, or not because I don't do it often. I do, and a lot. So much of what we say and do is just play. Nothing more than play. To think of it as something that has no purpose except as something I won't let go of from childhood, has never made more sense to me before now.
I think that we play (and cry), even though they're behaviors that no longer serve a purpose in our adult lives, because we're trying to hang on to our childhoods. It makes sense that as a species that can reflect upon our own mortality, our own inevitable endings, that we would want to prolong the period in our lives in which we didn't have so many doubts and fears. The more we grow, the more we are aware. We routinely can't stop ourselves from wondering what happens tomorrow, next year, ten years from now or after the lights finally go off.
But childhood is when you know no bounds, you are at once omnipotent and omniscient. I can think of no truer example of ignorance defining bliss. And who's to say there's something wrong with that? Who's to say that a child's lack of awareness is anything short of wonderful? A child never doubts themselves when they play. A child becomes her own master and commander, her own hero and her own savior in a completely different way than an adult who has to eventually accept that they are all these things for themselves. As adults, you have to accept your existential loneliness and fight the good fight for all your hopes and dreams. A child chooses to fight, chooses their goals and desires - nay sayers be damned.
Next time you play, feel limitless. Climb a tree, build a pillow fort, crawl into a box and be a deep space explorer. We are regularly and continually helpless, grasping at straws to explain humanity and existence and being. But once in a while we need to empower ourselves. Go on, play on.
