It’s a happy talent to know how to play.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Growing up in Rochester, New York, in a town a few snowball tosses away from the Great Lake of Ontario, I was blessed with many neighborhood friends who, like me, loved sports and loved to play sports.
The two are not always interchangeable. One can play sports and not play at all. I don’t mean sitting on a bench and not getting into the game, which I admit, I did much too much for my liking when I was on organized school teams. No, I mean not partaking in play that meets most dictionary definitions of the word as a verb: “to engage in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.”
For professional athletes in particular, the ability to maintain a sense of looseness and have a good time while performing their craft in heavily regulated and rigorously regimented environments (don’t believe me, Major League Baseball’s rulebook is 188 pages long, the NFL employs seven referees per game, and the official description of an NBA infraction, say violation of the Defensive 3-Second Rule, reads like a legal brief) is often directly related to their ability to star in their sport. Certainly to get the most out of it – mind, body and soul. As former NBA MVP Derrick Rose said:
I love playing basketball because you could be having a rough day in your life, and while you’re on the court it gives you a clear mind. I’m not worried about anything. I’m there just playing freely and I go out there all and I have fun.
But there are many instances where athletes, especially those at the top levels, lose connection to this freedom, this pureness of playing for playing sake. It becomes just a job to them, a way to make a living. And while there is nothing wrong with that (how few of us truly love our work), there is something profoundly sad, even tragic, when we witness, say, a favorite player “going through the motions” on the court or on the field, when their passion has turned into apathy, when the spark that got them to where they are no longer smolders. In essence, they have veered away from the source of their success. As renowned soccer player, coach and trainer Steve Locker said, “Before kids can play like a pro, they must enjoy playing the game like a kid.”
And it’s not just the professional athlete. How many of us, as adults, faced with, for example, the stress of making a living and/or being a parent, have stopped “playing,” sports, games, any activity that once brought us joy and release when young? It is not something to take lightly. According to Jason Kurtz, a leading psychoanalyst, award-winning playwright, and author of the memoir, Follow the Joy, “Without play, life is heavy. Serious. It grinds us down and depresses us.” He further elaborates:
Children naturally avoid serious behavior. They are drawn to fun. To lightness. To joy. Without play, there can be no joy. No true happiness. True adult wisdom is being able to discern when to be serious, and when to play. We need this balance. In fact, adult mental health is all about this balance.
So in the coming year, despite being steeped in middle age, I will heed Jason’s warning and pursue opportunities for play with abandon. And maybe, when I visit my beloved Rochester, I can call up a few old pals and set up a “play date.” Maybe even a game of “tackle basketball.”
You see, back in the day, in the dead of winter, when the snowdrifts would tower like mini-mountains and ring our suburban driveways in cold cushioning, we would find a hoop and engage in this sporting fusion. I can see it now so vividly: me dribbling to the goal, rising for a shot, and then getting clobbered at the same time the ball was released, catching a fast glimpse of it rising up through the frigid air, spinning toward the iron, but not knowing if it swished through the net or clanked off the iron, until I pulled myself from the snowbank behind the goal. It never hurt (too much), it was always fun, and we played and played and played until we were too tired or near frost-bit or had to go home for dinner.
Okay, maybe tackle basketball isn’t in the cards given my brittle bones and creaking joints. But who says I can’t still jump into a snowbank now and again? In fact, it’s starting to accumulate outside the window right now.
See you later.
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