Push the Future

Stuart Brown, M.D. opened PUSH 2007: SuperPower for us last year, establishing play as a central modality for people engaged in inventing the future. He’s warm and fascinating, weaving his knowledge of psychology, neurology and mythology into a case for play as essential to human development, intelligence and sociability. Stuart’s work has taken him from the research lab to the clinical practice, from working with Joseph Campbell to Jane Goodall, and finally to wrapping it all up in the creation of The National Institute for Play.

He’s an extraordinary person, and I couldn’t have been more pleased to see him hosted as a guest on public radio’s Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet following PUSH. Their conversation about Spirit, Character and Play led to an encore - and sold out - performance of the discussion at NY Public Library in January. This engagement, in turn, led to the cover story in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, “Serious Play.” Bravo!
A few of my favorite Stuart-isms:

• Brown found early in his clinical practice that a lack of natural, spontaneous, free-spirited play during childhood seemed to be a common thread in the histories of “horribly violent mass murderers, really off-the-wall felony drunk drivers,” and others “on the fringes.”
  
• Play fosters curiosity and is a major catalyst to learning.
• Play is any nonstereotyped, pleasureful activity that has no clear-cut goal and that is free of anxiety. Human beings have been “designed by nature to play” — that we retain juvenile physical and behavioral characteristics long into adulthood, and that play is important in every stage of life.
• There is a tremendous hunger in the culture for true play. Work is not the opposite of play, depression is.
• Play needs to be prioritized into our businesses, educational and family systems.