What if play can save us?

Maybe the way out of these horrible times is play

I woke this morning with an image in my head of a man swinging a large, noisy object around his head.

This image is actually real.

My fellow artist resident, Lee, showed it to me on his Instagram. His instagram is full of him doing “absurd” things.

That’s his word for it.

And I love it.

Everything about his art seems … pointless. And there’s something absolutely wonderful in that.

I originally spoke with Lee so I could interview him about environmentalism.

Our interview went pretty dark, pretty fast.

“It’s quite bleak really,” he said. Our conversation teetered back and forth between optimistic action and nihilism.

He shared about how we can grow our own food, and mentioned his own apartment patio garden where he grows potatoes from a soil sack.

But the next moment he said, “But you cannot do anything of real substance.”

He talked about cities cutting down trees because they don’t want to pay for the upkeep or deal with liability.

His face looked concerned, “You just feel powerless to it.” (Ironically I wrote about the same thing happening in my neighborhood three years ago).

He started to talk about how everything feels futile, and then offered a glimmer of hope, “It’s not futile if it works.” He then mentioned electric cars, buying your clothes second hand, and more.

Later, he was back to talking about how corporations know that what they’re doing is wrong, and we’re all investing in that system by buying products from them. His eyes looked off in the distance as he said, “You just have to buy what you can afford.”

Lee’s oscillating optimism reminds me of my own.

I have moments where I think there are great ideas that can shift the course we’re on, and then moments that I feel like nothing makes a difference in the face of government and industry action.

Artwork I made using gouache and ink

Perhaps this is why the image of Lee flinging objects around in the air stuck with me. There is something so delightful and wacky and weird and wonderful about it.

In the face of such destruction around us, a moment of levity shocks my spirit. It reminds me what it is to be human. To play. To laugh. To explore. To be.

Isn’t that why we’re trying to save the earth anyways?

So we, the earth included, can live fully?

So we can joyfully exist?

Or even exist at all.

Lee nor I have the solutions for the destruction and disregard we find ourselves in.

However, I think we both know what we want, and we’re actually doing it.

As I write this, Lee is down at the artist studio constructing a Land Rover out of discarded cardboard and tape.

Why?

Because it’s something his wild mind came up with and it seems fun to pursue.

What will he do with it?

I don’t even know if he knows. Maybe chuck it off the roof of a building like he did with his fighter jet he made from cardboard?

Lee’s Land Rover in the works

Maybe if more of us were like Lee, playing for the sake of playing, we’d remember what it means to be human.

We’d shift our priorities to protect not just our own humanity, but our wondrous earth that enables us to live so fully.

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Thanks for reading!

This essay is part of my ongoing art exhibition: How can we care for the earth and ourselves? I first interview people on the above topic, and then create response art (as seen in this essay) and write contemplative essays.

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1. Sign up for my free FUNletter. I share a weekly list of all the things I find fun.

2. Read my illustrated books for adults, like Grief is a Mess and Life as a Late-Identified Autistic.

3. Become an expressive arts therapy client (don’t worry, no art experience required). I work with neurodivergent clients who want to live meaningful, joyful lives.