How do warriors play?

I just finished writing this article for the next issue of Fieldnotes, which comes out next week. Serious play, deep play, warriors’ play— how would you define it and where do you see it? Feedback and comments welcome. If you don't hear about new issues of Fieldnotes by email (more or less monthly) and want to, subscribe here. Submissions also welcome.

How Do Warriors Play?

Trained in general and internal medicine, psychiatry, and clinical research, Stuart Brown first discovered the importance of play by noting its absence in homicidal young men. Thus begins the bio of the founder of the National Institute of Play, based at Stanford University. Through thousands of case profiles and countless hours of laboratory research, Dr. Brown’s team has shown beyond doubt that play is of critical importance to human development and social well-being. And sadly, many of us have forgotten how to do it by the time we are adults. We may think that the opposite of play is work, but in fact it is depression.

Stuart Brown recently visited Nova Scotia and presented his work through story-telling laced with good humor. It turns out that play is so core to our development that its absence limits people’s capacity for empathy, trust, resilience, and creativity—all foundations for productive, meaningful life and work.

The day following Stuart Brown’s visit, the newly minted book Walk Out Walk On arrived at the ALIA office. Flipping through the beautifully told stories there, I landed on the chapter “From Power to Play,” which describes the work of Elos Institute in Brazil. Through the voice of co-author Debbie Frieze I hear how Elos summons the indigenous warrior spirit when inviting (or daring) change-agents to come and play. “We would all become Txucarramae, Warriors Without Weapons, people who dance in the face of despair, who create beauty amidst decay. Here’s what they promised: We would play to change the world. And the world where we were going play was Paqueta, a small community beset by poverty, unemployment, drug abuse, and homelessness.”

The games they play are vivid, sensual, literal, mythic, empowering. The Warriors reclaim an abandoned warehouse that is dark, dangerous, knee-deep with “layers of dirt, asbestos, syringes, and excrement.” Later they play the Oasis Game, engaging the community in creating places of “joy, beauty, caring, and cooperation,” using cardboard, fabric, clay, whatever they have. They dance and sing and create their own rituals. They turn their creations into reality, transforming, for example, a pile of trash into a children’s garden.

There is no blueprint for this garden. There are no foremen. Everything is a constant process of discovery and creation. Messes happen. Sometimes one person builds half a wall and then someone else comes along and tears it down to start another. Redundancy happens. There is chaos and confusion—and there is also laughter and joy and pride. There is wild self-expression as children design their own rock gardens and declare that the jungle must be preserved, for it offers places to climb and to hide…. Together, we become garbage collectors and ditch diggers and bricklayers—side-by-side with the eight-year-olds and eighty-year-olds who will be visiting this garden every day.

I compare this scene to efforts to loosen up corporate meetings, to free up creativity in the workplace, by adding colored sticky notes, markers, and other playthings to an otherwise orderly boardroom table and carefully managed agenda. It is a well-intentioned step in the right direction, and possibly the only step possible at the time. But what does it really take to access the deep creative spirit needed to lift us out of everyday habits and depression, whether mild or extreme, and to let loose a process of joyful discovery?

We may think that warriorship is serious business, the opposite of creativity. We may think that play is frivolous, something that takes place after work, only among children, or only with crayons and markers. But what if real warriorship is play, and real play is an act of serious courage?

Jazz musician Jerry Granelli talks about the “discipline of spontaneity.” When we’re with someone who is truly spontaneous there is an edge of danger in the room. Our ability to predict, manage, or hide is at risk. The warrior exposes cowardice, simply by being so present, so playful. Aikido masters Bob Wing and Wendy Palmer invite us to pick up the sword, cut through our own hesitation and shyness, and then come out to play.

In so many ways research is now validating what we intuitively know to be true. About the value of mindfulness, creativity, embodiment, which all open the door to serious play. About the ability of ordinary people to change their minds and their future. Certainly science and research reassure our rational minds and address our intelligent questions. But the distance to still travel can be daunting. Stuart Brown delivered a provocative and captivating presentation on play, but apart from a midpoint break for jumping-jacks, the process was  one-directional, a traditional conference format that did little to engage. We missed the opportunity to play with these ideas, to take risks with strangers at our tables and create new meaning together, to illuminate examples of play in Nova Scotia and imagine what could be different if there was more. 

Meanwhile, back in the field, the story of Elos is an inspiring example of the power of play to address pressing social issues in cost-effective, humanizing, and empowering ways. But what will it take to bring such examples from the fringes into the mainstream? What will it take to shift how we, as a society, invest our money, our focus, our collective resources?

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To watch Dr. Stuart Brown’s TED presentation, click here.

To read an excerpt from Walk Out, Walk On by Debbie Frieze and Meg Wheatley, click here. To come and play with Debbie, Meg, some of the people featured in their book, and the Shambhala artists, join us at the ALIA Summer Institute.