Let's Play

Baby Cameron

Remember your favorite childhood game?

 Let’s play superheroes. Let’s play princesses. Let’s play house. Let’s play explorers. 

 Whatever your preferred form of play, this game undoubtedly involved an investment in imagination and a willingness to engage with the world in a heightened, creative way. Suddenly the bean bag is a pirate ship; the tree is home to a friendly monster; the cobwebbed nook behind the staircase is a jail cell; ~the floor is lava~. Every aspect of the game is fully imagined by every player, creating that magical, impenetrable energy of make-believe. There is something special, unnamable, about the conviction –the heart and soul – with which children play their games.

As children we ask: What can I do with this world? And then we learn the “real” question: What can this world do with me? The imaginative child is eclipsed by the conditioned adult; time to stop playing games and start putting in work, thus accruing profit.

Time to grow up.

Time to get real.

It’s no coincidence that we start thinking this way just as we become viable units of production in this capitalist system. We’re motivated to make and spend money when we view life as a game not to be played, but to be won; not to excite, inspire and enlighten us, but to exploit us.

But don’t we know that this narrative of outgrowing “childish” imagination as necessary to “successful” adulthood is bullshit? Obviously orchestrated to suppress our most guttural, fruitful urges? Yes. Of course we know. But sometimes knowing that a cultural narrative is flawed isn’t enough to counteract it.

So how can we remind ourselves that we are souls not supplies, people not products?

We have to make a conscious decision to locate that inner child, reintroduce ourselves to our own imaginative capacity, and do the work of playing. If we don’t allow ourselves to play in this vast, intimidating, beautiful playground of a world, how can we expect ourselves to do the work of caring for this playground, and caring for our fellow playmates?

For some of us, this play is literal. I grew up dancing and acting, and I often perform audience-less one woman shows in my bedroom. Or sing show tunes at the top of my lungs. Or allow myself to follow my most childish inclinations in my writing.

Play is anything that stokes the imagination; that reminds you of your particular presence in this world beyond your profit potential. Maybe it’s drawing or star gazing or cooking or wearing a funky hat ironically. Anything that brings out the childish. Anything that inspires you to engage with this world a little more joyously, a little more vibrantly, a little more truthfully; because who we imagine ourselves to be when we reject societal expectations and accept our imagination is (ironically) our truest self.

This truest self is who we must be if we’re to do the work that is so vital to healing our particular human moment and ensuring every successive human moment. This work – our work – is no small task. Caring for one another through the coronavirus pandemic, demanding racial justice, healing the wounds humanity has inflicted upon the natural world before it’s too late…

We have a lot of work to do.

And we can only do it if we access that childish part of us that believes anything is possible.

So let’s get to work.

Let’s imagine the world at its highest, most true form.

Let’s play.

Cameron Gunn

When she’s not wondering what the fuck she’ll do with her eventual degree in writing, politics, and psychology, Cameron can likely be found drinking matcha and pondering the universe with a Joyce Carol Oates novel nearby.

Check out her website here.