ABSTRACT
Asking what play gives to human life is like asking what growth, flowering and coming to fruit with seeds does for plant life. We play to make sense of life in activity. We move our bodies with rhythms of imagination, and display emotions as expressions of feeling that value our experiences so we can cooperate in social life. Play in moving has evolved to use a muscular body with many parts, to invent projects that sustain vitality of the Self, and to animate a community. Everyday movements for eating a meal, or settling to sleep, are perceived by social partners to be both playfully self-indulgent and performed with expression. They tell a story of feelings in activity, which are sensed as either gracious or awkward.
