According to this year’s list, the topic for May is Play.
Finn Janning is a writer and philosopher, holding a Ph.D. in practical philosophy. He lives in Barcelona, Spain. In 2019 he wrote an essay titled “Play is the Metaphysics of Becoming.” It is not a terribly long essay, and is in pretty plain English, so if you want to read it for yourself, the link is:
If you don’t have time for that, here is the last two paragraphs:
“Play both requires and produces compassion and empathy. We are social animals, as Aristotle said. No one can survive alone. However, being flexible, open, and curious enough to understand other people’s preferences, joys, and suffering requires that we empathize with and care for them or play with them respectfully. That is, the differences are not used strategically to reach a goal—for example, an opponent’s weakness in a game—but rather the differences are respected to make room for them. To develop this capacity, we must return to metaphysics.
If play is an example of change and becoming, where only one way of doing things does not exist, then by playing, we maintain our childish openness and curiosity because we cannot predict what is coming. Play can minimize the categorization of the world into different tribes that tend to identify themselves negatively. For example, I am not X. In games, many are tempted to cheat to gain the glory, prestige, and status that comes with winning or belonging to certain attractive social groups or identities. They adopt an us-against-them mentality. However, when we play, we play. When I play, my play is not about me, but it is about us, all of us. When we play, we are in it together. When we play, the idea of a permanent or authentic self dissolves. Playing helps me see that “I contain multitudes,” as Walt Whitman once wrote. Playing helps me become worthy of what is happening. It makes us alert and aware of the various movements of life, allowing us to go where life takes us.
Therefore, we play to survive, and people who do not play, live as if they are already dead.”
See you Sunday
January: Beloved Community
February: Commitment
March: Becoming
April: Story
May: Play
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