You don't want to be told, "Hey, do whatever you want." That's what we think of when we think of play. It's the thing where you get to do whatever you come up with in your own mind, all bets are off, there's no boundaries.

We don't like to think of ourselves as subject to the forces of the world, we like to think of ourselves as exerting that force.

I think a lot of the misery that people experience comes from that sensation of boundlessness, of infinite possibility.

I think the most important thing to realize about play is that it's this thing that's in stuff, it's not in you.

We think we want enjoyment, and that enjoyment is incompatible with work, and somehow we have to import the pleasure into these miserable experiences. That takes for granted that there's not fun or play to be found in the work itself.

I think this dichotomy or opposition between work and play, between leisure and serious stuff, is definitely a bad way of thinking about the useful insights that play provides.