Writing prompt: Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
I work in an office with many lovely and smart people and I find engaging them in conversation is playtime. It’s a social activity, almost always enlivening, and I (and hopefully we all) get to feel better at the end. I also maintain a small suite of games on my phone, including all the editions of ‘Kingdom Rush’ and ‘Monument Valley’, plus ‘Bejeweled’. On my laptop I’ve got ‘Factorio’, which I’ve been playing for many years now.
I also (try to) bike for 10 km every morning and of late I’ve come to appreciate that the activity takes me away from a screen and all thoughts about my work for that duration. Two of the few other times when I get to get away like that is during my trips to and from work, 30 minutes each way, and when I run errands at home. Given how hectic my job often is — even though I enjoy doing it — all these other diversions have come to seem like playtime as well.
I should also say that I like teaching myself ideas in physics, and it’s playtime when I discover a new scientific paper or concept that catches my imagination in some way, and I get to explaining it to myself by writing about it. And as I do that, it feels very rewarding when I figure something out for the first time after a long time and doubly so if I’m able to write it in a way that is accurate as well as narratively non-clumsy. I daresay it’s been something to live for.