138 - Play for a Living: Finding Joy in Your Work (Showmanship & Play 20 of 30)

What if your work felt like play? What if that seemingly childish question—"What would you do if money was no object?"—actually held the key to living without regret?

Captain Frodo takes us on a profound journey through the false separation between play and work that dominates adult life. Drawing wisdom from philosophers Johann Huizinga and John Dewey alongside mystical thinker Alan Watts, this episode challenges our cultural assumptions about what constitutes "serious" pursuits.

The exploration reveals how children's play—far from frivolous—represents deep, meaningful engagement with the world. This "serious play" serves as their work, their way of understanding themselves and their place in society. Meanwhile, adults often abandon play for "work" defined by external rewards rather than intrinsic satisfaction, creating lives split between obligation and enjoyment.

Most poignantly, we confront the five most common regrets of the dying, with the top regret being failing to live authentically rather than meeting others' expectations. This reveals the potential consequences of abandoning our playful nature for socially prescribed paths.

Through evolutionary perspectives showing childhood's increasing importance in human development and philosophical insights about integrating play and work, Captain Frodo offers a compelling vision: work permeated with the play attitude becomes art—and potentially, the foundation of a life without regret.

Ready to reconsider the role of play in your life and work? This episode might change how you view what truly matters. Follow @thewayoftheshowman on Instagram and share this episode with someone searching for more meaning in their daily pursuits.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to The Way of the Showman
• 1:31 Recap: Play is Serious Business
• 6:34 Adults Playing for a Living
• 15:24 What Would You Do If Money Was No Object?
• 27:13 The Five Regrets of the Dying
• 30:59 The Kid as Father of the Man
• 42:47 Who Decides What's Serious?

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Greetings, fellow travellers, and welcome to the way of the showman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo and I will be your host and your guide along the way, as we have been known to do along this way, this fourth season I guess there's four seasons in one year, right? So maybe this is like the fourth season even, but along the way of the showman it seems, the seasons are taking pretty much a year. So whatever that may be, but, um, whatever that might mean, but anyway, we're in the fourth season and we are exploring showmanship. As always we're exploring. The whole reason why we are talking at all is because of showmanship, it's because of performance, it's because of circus and magic. It's's for us who are standing the other way and find enjoyment and meaning in standing the other way in front of audiences and giving them experiences, sharing our material with them and hopefully, affecting them deeply. So with that, we are then looking at play. What can we learn by looking at play, about showmanship and our craft of performance? Well, as it turns out, a whole lot. We're not going to just summarize all of that here now in the sentence, but I would like to make a quick summary of what we spoke about in the last episode, where we talked about play, and what we spoke about then was serious play, and what we talked about was that we often think that play isn't serious. That might even be what the common person might think of, as that play is the not serious stuff that we do when we aren't serious. But the distinction that we played with in the last episode was that for children, play is absolutely serious. We looked at some quotes from Johann Heutzinger, who wrote the book Homo Ludens, or Playful Human and Playing Human, the human, the being which plays, that's us and he repeatedly in that book, in the early chapter possibly the first chapter, if I remember correctly he talks about play is serious. Play is absolutely serious. Play is absolutely serious. Playing is a serious activity. There is actually just a confusion, if you think otherwise, confusion as to what play is. So that isn't, then, the distinction, because play is serious. Then we look at well, work is what we thought of as serious. So if they both are serious, then what is the difference then?

Speaker 1: 3:13

And one of the differences that we managed to pass out was that a child plays and finds enjoyment. They find fun in the apparently purposeless activity. Whatever they're doing, it's motivated by themselves and they're voluntarily getting involved in making all the rules and all that. So in that there is an enjoyment. Kids love to play and if it then is true, as we claimed last time, my mom said play is the child's work. So she frames it like that. But when kids are going to be serious and do something that's worthwhile, then they go. Okay, finally it's time to play. I've got to get some playing done, and that gives them meaning in their life. So play is the child's work, which was said by my mom, was also said by Jean Piaget, which was said by my mum, was also said by Jean Piaget.

Speaker 1: 4:06

But when the child goes to then work, to do their play, they're finding deep enjoyment, deep emotional engagement and in fact, we looked at last time play as a kind of full spectrum engagement with the world, or thinking, for lack of a better kind of word. It's like it's how you interact and understand the world. Thinking, for lack of a better kind of word. It's like it's how you interact and understand the world. They do it through play and they get an immense enjoyment from it. Remember criteria one of what play is, as we have looked at it, is that it's fun and that's something that you don't want to end.

Speaker 1: 4:40

So one difference, then, that we found towards the end of the last episode is that work often is actually become synonymous with something that people don't do for fun. It's something that they don't do because they thoroughly enjoy it. A lot of people have it like that. Some people have, like me, who they thoroughly love what it is that they do, who they thoroughly love what it is that they do, and there's no distinction between what I do in my work life and in my everyday life. So could it be so crass that one of the differences at least that is at least as meaningful as people who commonly think that play isn't serious, at least as meaningful as people who commonly think that play isn't serious is that one of the aspects of work is that it is stuff that you do for reasons other than the fun. So making it diametrically, then, opposite to fun, which is done because you want to do it and because you're finding it valuable valuable in itself. Now, work is, for a lot of people, then, not something you do for itself, but for a further purpose beyond itself making money or whatever that might be. So just on the end of the last episode we hinted at that. You should ask yourself what would you do if money was no object, which comes from the genuine fake, as a biography of him is called about, alan Watts.

Speaker 1: 6:13

We're going to look at that, but first we're going to look a little bit more at what it means for adults to be playing for a living. So let's jump in and start the trot and walking down the next leg of our exploration so adults can play for a living. That's theme of the next little bit we're gonna say. And last time we did speak a lot about, you know, we mentioned that I squeezed through two tennis rackets for work and we mentioned that my daughter was playing with all these little special mice, the MyLeg series of mice. So I'm not suggesting that everyone that goes to work should squeeze through rackets or that they should get this particular brand of mile-leg mice and call them Molly and play those games that I suggested, because those are, of course, examples of my particular way of playing my work and my daughter's and her way of playing, and these are our particular kinds of flow. Each person must find their own game and I'm saying that everyone should strive to find a job which is so enjoyable for them that they would rather do this work than anything else, whether it's considered the best career move or most lucrative thing or not.

Speaker 1: 7:43

When I say we should all play for a living, I mean we should let our work be infused with play. We should all work playfully. Sometimes running is just running, other times it's play. That second kind of running has all kinds of health benefits on top of the baseline cardio fitness thing. If you're playing whilst engaging your fitness regime, you get all kinds of other benefits that we have seen are associated with play. I am suggesting that we fuse the best of the world of play with the best of the world of work. We do need to get things done to make the world go round, as they say, but I can certainly get things done and still be in my happy place of play, be in a full flow state and get my work done, and that does not just mean the actual performances that I dowey the pragmatist. He says it's a rather long quote.

Speaker 1: 8:51

It is important not to confuse the psychological distinction between play and work with the economic distinction. Psychologically, the defining characteristic of play is not amusement or aimlessness, it is the fact that the aim is thought of as more activity, more activity in the same line, without defining continuity of action in reference to results produced. Activities, as they grow more complicated, gain added meaning by greater attention to specific results achieved. Thus they pass gradually into work. Both are equally free and intrinsically motivated. Apart from false economic conditions which tend to make play into idle excitement for the well-to-do and work into uncongenial labor for the poor. For the well-to-do and work into uncongenial labor for the poor, work is psychologically simply an activity which consciously includes regard for consequences as part of itself. It becomes constrained labor when the consequences are outside of the activity as an end to which activity is merely a means. Which activity is merely a means.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Work which remain permeated with the play attitude is art. Work which remains permeated with the play attitude is art In quality, if not in conventional designation. John Dewey said that in 1916 in Democracy and Education, so in 1916, that's predating Heutsinger who wrote in 1938 in his book Homo Ludens, and I appreciate here that this language is rather convoluted and whatever, but we can see in here so many already if you go back and listen to it again, like how he's here specifically and talking about adults or so. But you can see these elements of play and the criteria of play. We can find them in here, but he is making an important distinction with separating the economic out of it and looking at the intention that we have when we go through it. And he then ends up by saying that work which remains permeated with the play attitude is actually art, and that is one of the wonderful thing that John Dewey write about in a in a further book that he wrote called artist experience, which is also a tremendous book, which I have not read in full, but I've read a lot where other people talk about this book and quotes and stuff and something on my list of reading. That's for sure, but absolutely interesting, even if it is a little complex, you know. He says like the aim is. In this quote he goes the aim is thought of as more activity. In the same line, that's what what Dewey says, and this to me, is just another way of expressing what James Carr calls the infinite games you know we talked about where an infinite game is something that we engage in for the purpose of continuing to play, not to win, which is the goal of a finite game, and this infinite game is the most important game that we humans play.

Speaker 1: 12:04

So when he says work which remains permeated with play, attitude is art, drew then describes my own experience of work. Mine is, of course it is actually art when I do it. But if you have a plumber that comes to you or somebody comes a landscape architect, a gardener, who's going to help you work out you've got some drainage problem where there's always wet on your part of your property and you want to fix it up, you don't want that person to go when he meets you saying, oh, what do you do? And I say I work at the circus, in a circus or whatever I do circus, and then he goes, oh, I wish I could do something like that, I wish he would go, that the gardener would go or landscape architect would go oh yeah, you work in a circus. Ah yeah, well, that's interesting, but you know, okay. So look at the contours of your property here, can you see? So of course you see the water there. Property here, can you see? So of course you see the water there. There's wet down there, yeah, right.

Speaker 1: 13:07

And then and then going, so and that just goes straight into telling me about the lay of the land, and how everything is working out and and how, and being completely engrossed and excited in his own work, because that is his sweet spot and maybe he then wants he's sort of enthusiastically gone that he gone, oh yeah, so yeah, you work in the circus, yeah, yeah, yeah so. Is that, is that? Can you make money doing that anyway? Um, but I do absolutely believe that, um, that you can have this attitude, and so did john dewey. So he's much more respected and intelligent person than myself and he's already, you know, with two people. If great minds think alike, then that's a good thing. Maybe I can take him as backing this up and the way that he says you know, the attitude of play. If that's kept in mind or enacted when you're working, then you're actually doing art, and I absolutely have a playful attitude to my work and I am an artist. So, case in point, the playful aspect of my work allows me to get more enjoyment in life. If the one who has the most fun, the best experience of life, wins, then the ever playful are strong candidates for gold medals. So I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 14:34

That quote by john dewey is very written, it's very it's and it's dense, and that is because he's a philosopher and he writes in that language. And once you get, once you read it, read it. Then you do actually get into it and start to grasp it and it can really pop at you. But I did promise in the end of the last episode I said you know, you should follow the advice of Alan Watts, the crazy wise Zen master jester. And so he uses a different language and is more compelling, perhaps, and direct. So let's see what he suggests in how to find what we love.

Speaker 1: 15:20

And this comes from a talk that he did, and this comes from a talk that he did at least a section of a talk that he did. I don't actually know when it was, but in the end of the day, who cares? The wisdom is eternal. So what would you do if money was no object? Because it's really hard to remain playful. We so easily get sidetracked, worrying about how successful our friends are. Through the internet, we always find someone to compare ourselves to who are doing better, who's more famous, who's done more, gets more clicks and likes and are younger and more beautiful and has a full head of hair whilst doing it. Money distorts everything and so does power, Both money and power so very easily corrupts what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 16:07

We need only remember Lord of the Rings, where Frodo is the only one who can carry the ring, in part because he doesn't want to. Frodo only wanted to live his life and spend time with elves, learning and playing. Yet when it came down to it, and neither the elves, the dwarves or the race of humans could face the corrupting power of the ring, frodo steps up and says I will take it. I will take the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way. And Gandalf is relieved, as even he, the great wizard, is afraid of the corrupting power of the ring.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Elrond, the lord of Rivendell, finishes the council by saying this is the hour of the Shire folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and councils of the great. Who of all the wise could have foreseen it? Or if they are wise, why should they expect to know it until the hour has struck, collared by our explorations of neoteny and juvenileization and inner children? I can't help but reading this with the Shire folk as decidedly childlike. But yet again, I doubt this was the intention Tolkien put into it, almost like he's describing the time of the inner children. That wasn't what he was talking about. But, as with all great poetry, that wasn't what he was talking about. But as with all great poetry, as with all great literature, all great art, its manifold of meanings, is greater than the intents of its authors. So, whether he intended this or not, I see this as the rise of the shy folk, the rise of the playful.

Speaker 1: 18:04

The human kinds us kinder ones. Money and power corrupts us all. They both cast shadows across our planning of our ways forward, so that we no longer can see what we really want. Alistair Crowley famously said do what thou wilt. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, which, on the surface, seems to be that there are no rules. Hedonism and carelessness is as good as any other pursuit. Yet when we look at what Thelma, which is what the spiritual philosophy based on Crowley's work, is called, we find that the central question that Thelemites seek to answer is what do you really want? What is your true will? Because they don't believe that your true will is something that you consciously decide upon, but rather something which comes from the interplay between the deepest self and the entire universe, like how, finding one's true will is the great quest for occultists and for those like me who loved the book of the NeverEnding Story, you will remember how the Orin necklace the Orin, as I said when I read it out loud in Norwegian, the necklace that Atreyu gets from the child empress. This medallion has two snakes biting each other's tails and it has an inscription on the back. And the inscription says do what you wish.

Speaker 1: 19:38

The second part of that book, the most complex and brilliant part, where Mikalenda the author goes beyond the simple structure of the hero's quest, or monomyth as Joseph Campbell called it, shows us how hard it is for a hero who achieves their goal to then go on and use their power to remake the world as a perfect little antidote to then this always ever-present potential of corruption of power as a compass. To guide your way, alamotz, the Zen master jester, suggests that you summon your inner Frodo by seriously contemplating that simple question what would you do if money was no object? Almost invariably, people find that what they are currently doing isn't what they would like to do. Watts says that when he asks his students, they usually say that they want to be poets or painters or dancers, or walk in the wilderness, or study without a ticking clock of pressure and exams, or walk in the wilderness or study without a ticking clock of pressure and exams. He then asks them why they aren't already doing those things and they say because you can't make money doing that and there are no money involved.

Speaker 1: 21:04

When you're a kid I remember reading about the Norwegian polar explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amund and being frustrated with how much time was, in my opinion, wasted in their books going on about how they were raising money and, in the case of Amundsen, the whole trouble with his creditors because he spent more money than he could on his exploration or than he had on his explorations. So he basically actually Roald Amundsen maneuvered his way to the South Pole in part to escape his creditors. For me, the moment when he told his crew that because he had heard that somebody had actually gone to the North Pole and he was going, roald Amundsen was going to the North Pole to be the first person there. But then there was some rumors that maybe somebody actually did just go there pole to be the first person there. But then there was some rumors that maybe somebody actually did just go there and then he he's going. Oh well, I don't want to go to the north pole then. Then I'm going to go to the south pole, but he told his crew that they weren't sailing to the north pole after um, after all, and instead that that they were going to raise Captain Scott to be the first human beings to set their feet on the South Pole.

Speaker 1: 22:15

I felt like when he told them that that was when the book started, and then all creditors and all talk of money and paperwork and permits and numbers ceased and the only thing that was left was to dive into the adventure of a lifetime, the adventure of life. Finally the real world receded. I remember thinking and all that was left was the adventure, the relaxed field of reality where play is king. And just as a note off the top of my head on Roald Amundsen borrowing Fritz of Nansen's boat from to go to the South Pole, that he sailed out and far enough away from the creditors and everyone. Then he told the crew and he said actually I know that you guys have all signed on to go to the North Pole, but we are turning left and going down south, so anyone who now don't want to come to the South Pole instead can get off. And he went to. Where was it? Was it in Portugal that he landed, stopped and sent some letters and some stuff and some telegrams before they went on further. So that was just a funny way to do it. He needed to go and didn't want to tell them so that they wouldn't change their mind, because of course I can't remember if a single one actually got off. I guess ultimately we're going into the snow and ice.

Speaker 1: 23:43

Whether it's going to the north or the south might not be such a big difference, but interesting anyway, if you like, explorers. So as a kid, money had no interest for me, and maybe that's because I'm super privileged and I had a dad who both did magic shows and worked from home and was a photographer and managed to take care of us and my mum was working in a kindergarten so we had, you know, maybe that's why, but um, why? I just remember. Be that as it may, I just remember that I was kind of answering, questioning anyway, like why, why would money have to get between a person and their adventures? I just didn't get it.

Speaker 1: 24:32

So, as exemplified by what's a Student, this concerningly large portion of us end up doing something which we don't love or, in many cases, don't even particularly like. For all these people, an enormous amount of their lives will be spent doing things that they don't particularly like. For all these people, an enormous amount of their lives will be spent doing things that they don't particularly like. But if the reason that you are doing the work is so that you'll have money to live your life as you want, with eight hours or more of each day dedicated to work that you don't particularly like, then you're making your money to be able to live a life which, when you take sleep into account, is barely half of your existence. You work to be able to live a life which, when you take sleep into account, is barely half of your existence. You work to be able to live a life which, in a substantial way, consists of activities you don't like, and in my naivety as a child, perhaps it was something like this that I experienced, and maybe I could sniff the corrupting power of money. I remember reading books and finding all those like ways that money and that would impinge into the story. I just wasn't interested.

Speaker 1: 25:40

When you're a kid, you are primed for play. You will always seek out ways to follow your motivation, however random and pointless it might be, or seem to someone else at least. So perhaps from this point of view, a child might see the same thing as the sage, the wisdom, the wise. I couldn't express it like Alamotz, but the exercise of removing money from the equation reminds me of all the features of play and how they seem especially adapted to find your passion. It's like you need money to live, but that's not the point for the play.

Speaker 1: 26:22

Watts advises his students to find their passion and pursue it. Those who said they wanted to be painters, philosophers, writers or to spend their life with horses should do exactly that. When money isn't the object, but quality of life and doing what makes sense and feels meaningful to oneself, then the sum of your life experience will likely be better. At the end of that trip through life, you'd rate it rather high on TripAdvisor, higher, in fact, than if you had had more money but spent half of your waking hours in an office cubicle. Watts ends his speech by pointing out the absolute importance of asking the question. By pointing out the absolute importance of asking the question what do I desire?

Speaker 1: 27:12

In the light of our exploration of play, I believe we can see how play is nature's way of guiding individuals towards what they desire. And if you follow Alan Watts' advice, even just a contemplation of it. Chances are that when you really arrive at what's important for you, what your desire is, what your true will is, that it will be something like what the nurses in hospices tells us that people really regret as they die. Because what is it when you get to the end? They die. Because what is it when you get to the end of your life? What is it when people look back at their lives? What's the common things that people say that they regret?

Speaker 1: 27:59

And there is an Australian woman, a palliative caregiver, a nurse who takes care of people in the final moments of life. Her name is Bronnie Wears and she's written a book on the regrets of the dying from 2012. And she writes many interesting things. But she finds the top five most common regrets to be and I'm not making this up, this is what she actually wrote. You can google it or maybe I'll put a link in the show notes to, to the book or whatever but the regrets they're also they're not surprising, like the first thing that she writes is when asked what are your top five regrets?

Speaker 1: 28:47

The top top five regret is I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. Second, I wish I hadn't worked so hard, and in the light of everything that we've talked about, what does it mean? The work? It's the work that you don't like. Three, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. Four, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. And five, I wish I had let myself be happier. I wish I had let myself be happier.

Speaker 1: 29:42

It is trivialized in a negative way. It's to be trivialized to be only about entertainment and fun, as a waste of time. It's like our culture has forgotten how the little prince told us that the time that we waste with our friends and those we care for is the only time that matters. Enough of us haven't asked ourselves Alan Watts' question what would I do if money was no object, if money and power wasn't in there to tempt us or to corrupt us, like the ring that Frodo carries At any given moment, you could always just go oh, and you start doing those things, and then you get to the end and you go ah, I should have played the infinite game. I kept winning these little finite games, but at the end of my life I wish I'd let myself be happier.

Speaker 1: 30:48

So is the kid the man? Maybe the kid is the man, maybe the kid is the adult, because we have the longest childhood of any species on earth. It takes about 25 years before we are matured physiologically. A point, in fact, is that the frontal cortex, which isn't fully developed until we're about 25 years old, the interesting part of this particular late completion relevant to our exploration, is that the frontal cortex is the part of the brain where our performance of motor tasks, judgment, rational and abstract thinking, creativity, as well as the maintenance of social appropriateness are processed. These qualities would all fit in well on a list of what constitutes maturity. What constitutes maturity? A mature, well-adapted human being can be rational, has good judgment, it's creative and they manage to behave, understand social situations. In this way, finishing the developmental aspects of the frontal cortex as in the brain, actually being finished growing, it becomes like the capstone on the project of childhood. What these 25 years of childhood development means? That the amount of work that a child really needs to get done is just quite exceptional. So no wonder kids play so hard and so indefatigably.

Speaker 1: 32:29

If we believe that what's not necessary or which in any way diminishes our survival or reproductive prospects will, in the long run be weeded out, then childhood would have been shortened or been gotten rid of if it wasn't non-essential. We should expect evolution to be tinkering with and fine-tuning childhood as much as it tinkers with all the rest of biology and behaviors, and one could argue wrongly, I think, that childhood is a spandrel, as Stephen Jay Gould called it. Band rule is a byproduct of evolution, not something of evolved for its own sake, like the human chin, which, if you did pick up the gauntlet that I threw down a long time ago, a couple of episodes ago, about what is the purpose of the chin maybe nothing then you would already know this, but that the playful behavior, the behaviors, are neither here nor there and it it just drifts along on the edges of the important and serious parts of life. But after our considerable explorations of play, we know that this isn't true. Play is not a spandrel, it's not something spandrel is actually okay. I guess I should say that because it's not something spandrels is actually okay.

Speaker 1: 33:45

I guess I should say that because it's a concept that Stephen Jay Gould talks about and the spandrel? He has an essay called the Spandrels of St Marco. I believe it's a cathedral of St Marco, is that what it's called, and it's when you make a dome inside a church or the dome in the roof, the way that several domes connect. You get these like the intersection of two domes. Also, you get these sort of wooden structures that goes down on the inside of a dome or whatever, and that goes down to the pillars that holds it up, and these are necessary for the dome to exist, but they're not the purpose of the dome, but it's just a necessity of being able to build it out of the brick or whatever it is. So a spandrel in a church is a architectural feature that you haven't included in there because you wanted it to be there, but that's there as because it's necessitated by the construction of the dome. So, if that makes any sense at all, but, um, yeah, so we know that play is not just a spandrel, something that you can do without.

Speaker 1: 34:57

The work that a child needs to do is very important indeed, and one way we know this is because childhood hasn't gotten shorter, it has gotten longer. Over the course of the past 1.5 million years, the forces of evolution inserted an extra six years between infancy and pre-adolescence. It basically inserted a childhood into the life of our species, and I have some of this. Uh, information comes, uh, that last bit there that over the course of the past one, five million years that's a quote from chip walter from his essay called why are we the last apes standing? How he can make that claim is, uh, yeah, something worthwhile looking into if you ever want to, yeah, deepen that thing there. Like it's just incredible, like how much longer adolescence there's, more, more development, more development.

Speaker 1: 35:53

But also childhood is an expensive affair, as my, as my friend paul de beck, says to a kid volunteer in his I hate children magic show. He says it costs $100,000 to raise a child. Your mom could have had a Tesla and that joke building on that you go. So a woman called Brenna Hassett has, in an Eonco essay called how to Grow a Human, she suggests that the expense of childhood is a powerful way to describe it. She says quote perhaps the most clear-cut definition describes childhood in terms of investment. It is the period when you are a net resource sink, when other people are still investing heavily in you end quote More resources are needed for us Hjormersapiens to fund the primary research and development work of childhood than any of our ancestors. Our kids play more and for longer, and the project of becoming human is actually very expensive in terms of time and commitment and investment.

Speaker 1: 37:10

If play is the child's work, and the project of that work is to explore themselves, the world and their place in it, then it would make sense that the products of that work would become the foundation for the adult work. What's discovered through the child's work is then, ideally, a knowledge about themselves and what they have to contribute and how they fit into the world. And since play being the nature of this work, it means that it is driven by self-motivated activities which they themselves find fun and meaningful. So they find their role in the world or where they think that they fit in, and that should then be the basis for where to go as an adult, but based on even on just tons of hours and resources that are invested in children. We should take their work seriously, their play work, and help them be conscious of their findings, since the result of their play, work, work, play aren't actually things. It's not like there's a house or a road built by the end of it. The work is internal. They carry the work with them or, better expressed, they are the result of the work.

Speaker 1: 38:31

The job of schooling should, at least in part, be to help the child become aware of the product of their work, so that they as adults can pursue work that builds a house on the firm foundations of the work that's done in childhood. And here we can glimpse and add a depth to the child as the father of the man. The Wordsworth line from his poem my Heart Leaps Up, and the work on becoming human starts in childhood and is continued in adulthood. So the kid is indeed the father of the man. So the kid is indeed the father of the man. And now we're going to dig into seriousness, because we've already looked at it a little bit and we go well, play is serious and work is serious, but they're serious in different ways or whatever. So we're now going to look at who decides what's serious. So the work done in childhood is deemed important enough for evolution to promote it heavily.

Speaker 1: 39:37

Yet the common conception of play, which is nature, the nature of the child's work, is that it is not serious, as, as we have seen, this could be based on differences in how adults play, because when we play, then it isn't serious in that same way, because it's not necessary in a way that it is for a child we can still find meaning if we're not playing by doing work or whatever, but it's not so. That's that difference that I was hinting at there. It's a couple of episodes ago, or was it even last episode, but in a way that play is always something extra and superfluous, something done just for the fun of it. For adults is not serious, or we might say that for kids too it's just serious. But we're confusing then what it's about, and I'm now confusing this by adding too many ad hoc interjections there. So this brings us back to the concept of the serious which we encountered in the beginning of the chapter what is serious and who decides what is serious? And when I say this chapter, I actually mean a couple of episodes ago, because this chapter was 18,000 words long, so I'm dividing it up into several sections, since you might want to have your audiobook divided up into chapters.

Speaker 1: 40:55

So serious. What is serious? Serious implies something solemn, something sober, thoughtful or introspective. It can also mean any important life and death, high priority, no joke business, since a circus show is expected to be fun, lighthearted, cheerful, and then these aren't features commonly attributed to the serious. We see a strong indicator for why entertaining performances in general aren't seen as serious. Whether or not one gets to see the circus or a musical is not a life and death matter. When the pandemic comes, then entertainment and arts are the first sacrifices on the altar of necessity. So then it's only time for serious business.

Speaker 1: 41:41

The Google dictionary lists as a first definition of serious that serious is of a subject, state or activity that demands careful consideration or application. So this means that since circus, magic and entertainment aren't serious, that they are not subjects or activities demanding careful consideration or application. Careful consideration or application. But, as any ardent follower or even random ambler down the way of the shaman knows, this is patently wrong. So how did it come to be like this that we thought that our pursuits art and the very heart of existence and that in the playful way of being in the world? How did we think that this was activities that didn't demand careful consideration or application? How did it come that certain aspects of human pursuits are, per definition, not worth time and consideration and considered attention?

Speaker 1: 42:50

I find it curious that anything fun, enjoyable and exciting, all the things that we are drawn towards in childhood and in our spare time, are deemed not worthy pursuits in themselves To enjoy oneself and to effortlessly pay attention to something is not worthy of doing or carefully considering. Only what's solemn, boring or tragic are serious. Why is this when, as soon as we're done with the serious and important stuff, when we get right into all the fun and playful stuff, that's what we do? When we finished work, you do the stuff that you want to do. So okay, why? Why is this? Why does there seem to be a discrepancy between what we do when we enjoy ourselves and what's serious? So this is the question that we're going to pick up next episode, and it comes down to the work of an interesting thinker called alan white, and I found out about this man through a wonderful book called inside the reptile tent, which is a great little book with photographs and and rather academic kind of texts, and I read it a long time ago when the Happy Sideshow was doing a creative development with Derek Ives, the late, great and deeply influential Derek Ives, the dark clown from Australia. Anyway, we're going to look at that and who decides what's serious in the next exciting episode of the Way of the Showman?

Speaker 1: 44:45

All right, I hope you are doing exceptionally well wherever you are when you are listening to this.

Speaker 1: 44:51

I hope that you are managing to be within a flow state, that you're being challenged by yourself and the world around you and the projects that you're working on, but that you're managing to stay just ahead of it, in a flow state, and just managing to surprise yourself by actually being able to solve the problems as they arrive.

Speaker 1: 45:16

And before I let you go, I would just like to remind you that if you haven't already signed up and followed me on the way of the showman at Instagram, then it would be totally awesome if you did. And, as always, I put in a whole lot of work and a whole lot of love in this thing and I have a whole lot of love for you and it would be great if you returned a favor for me doing all of this work, if it's having any value for you that you shared this with someone that you loved and cared about. So if you could do that, that'd be totally awesome. And until next time, take care of yourself and those you love, who you just talked about the podcast to, and I hope to see you along the way.