Thoughts on "Nature and significance of play as a cultural phenomenon". An extract from the book "Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture" written by Johan Huizinga.

In this article I’ll simply be taking what is written in the text in front of me, bit by bit and summarising my understanding of what it is trying to say, finally giving my opinion on said summary. Here goes.

The first page simply states the fact that play is something that occurs naturally among many different species besides humans and has done so since long before we became a cultured race. It also seeks to define why we play, but doesn't seem to accept any of the suggested causes written. Personally I believe that it is a very important part of a childs growth and development. Play will teach them vital social skills, among many other things that will help them in later years.

                Next up is a discussion on the seriousness of play, and as I understand it what has been said is that in a very Schrödingers cat sort of way, play can be both serious and 'non-serious' at the same time, depending on what is being played, a sound observation that I agree with completely. Going on from this is a section about some words we can loosely connect and group together, it mentions that these words are 'resistant to any attempts to reduce them to other terms' which I'm not entirely sure I understand.

                From the next couple of pages plays lack of strict rules for when it can be started or stopped are discussed. That is to say it can be initiated (or ceased) at any time and is always done so voluntarily, at ones leisure. A simple observation with which I also have no criticisms.

                Moving onto the next topic which is in short that play is not 'real', again a simple observation but one that carries some weight in that play can, certainly in the cases of children, be immersive to the point of completely absorbing the player. Play becomes their reality, if only for a short time, and I think this is something we can all relate to in some form.

                After this comes a topic I'm not entirely sure I understand,  or at least the part mentioning the 'disinterestedness' of play trips me up a bit. It mentions that play is not 'ordinary life', which is similar in a way to saying that it isn't 'real', I take this section to be referring to playing sports and more formal/adult play, in which case it just seems to be stating the obvious.

                Over the next page the limitations that are put in play in regards to time and space are discussed, for instance all play takes place in a set arena, be it a field, table or board. Thankfully only briefly mentioned it allows me to move onto the next topic which is how ordered play is, in reference to the strict rule set that accompanies most scenarios.  The focus of this section is how delicate the 'play-state' is and indeed how easily it can be broken by someone who doesn't follow the 'rules' that govern it, how it spoils the game and destroys the illusion. The people who break the rules will sometimes be doing so purely based on a desire to succeed in play, something that is covered over the next page.

                The penultimate topic is how a community or club can form around some games that are played, be it purely to further the enjoyment of said game outside the realm of play, or simply because a group of people prefer to play a game a different way to the norm.

                The final topic is the topic of 'secrecy', which as far as I can understand is either simply in reference to having something to call your own and keeping it that way, or having secrecy as part of the play itself by having players dress up to disguise themselves, throwing anonymity into the mix to make it more interesting.

                Overall I think this article states a lot of obvious facts, but in truth they are only obvious to me after having read about them.