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Love is bringing out the play in others.
Play is the mode of one who is loved. 

When you create conditions for another person to express themselves playfully, you have loved them. When you have been safely carried into a state of playfulness, you have been loved. Relationship without playfulness is mere transaction.

To be clear—play is not love; and love is not play. But play is, perhaps, the greatest evidence that love is present. These two are siblings, like thought and knowledge, memory and identity, melody and rhythm. Play and love enhance each other with selfless mutuality and it is only in tandem that the depths of both can be fully realized. 

Culturally speaking, there has been much effort to delineate between the various types of love: friendship love, familial love, erotic love, etc… But if we are to understand love, it won’t be by breaking it apart and analyzing the pieces. Rather, it will be through studying love’s master traits—the fruit that it manifests consistently across all categories. Chief among these, I believe, is play.

Play and love exist in the same paradoxical space. They are not “rights” in the sense that they are guaranteed to an individual, although they are available to everyone. They are not “necessary” for survival, although they justify survival and give life meaning. Like art, love and play cannot be programmed, engineered, or “made useful.” To pragmatize them is to desecrate them.

Love and play are always in the margins—beyond mere duty and far past what the law or society requires. The key to understanding love and play is to understand that they share a similar nature—unconditional, generative, and without strings. They are gloriously extravagant, risibly inefficient, and profoundly indispensable. 

Relationships are established through play. Before special hobby groups can be formed, before elevator pitches to demonstrate sociability can be designed, and before dating apps can be built to aid selection, we can observe the simple interaction of children. The toddler who shares his Tonka truck. The kindergartner who plays hide-and-seek with her classmate. The bright-eyed youngling inviting another bright-eyed youngling to throw me the ball; the innocent assumption that they will throw it back. 

It is here in the sandbox that the building blocks of friendship are first discovered. It is here that we explore the boundaries of a stranger’s benevolence—and their response conditions us to what is safe and what is hazardous in life. We give and take, conform and fashion, shape and get shaped. As we grow up, this dynamic doesn’t change, it just evolves. The fundamental question remains the same: approach or avoid? 

We solve this riddle through play: Fashion. Manners. Small talk. Competition. Will this person accept my jesting? Will they riff off my jokes? Do they play by the rules? Are they gracious in victory? Humble in defeat? Will they share in my imagination? Will they allow me to be excited about the things that excite me? 

If the answer is no, we withdraw our play and keep things superficial. If they respond agreeably, we deepen the game and build a world together. All relationships are world building—and a world built by love is a world where you feel safe to play without punishment or torment. Indeed, this is vital. To understand the partnership between love and play, you need to know not just their common traits, but also their common enemies. For instance:

What is the opposite of love?

It is not hate, for most hate contains quite a bit of affection. The greatest haters are always the ones who, in their innermost being, have generously coveted the thing they purport to despise.

What is the opposite of play?

It is not work, although some truly hate their job in a way that makes it impossible to take lightly.

The opposite of these is fear. 

In all the world, there is no greater enemy to love and play than fear. Fear is the play-killer, the root of insecurity, and the source of all selfishness. There is no fear in love, because perfect love drives out fear and wraps the beloved in reassurance. It’s only when fear has been dissolved by love, or at least put in its place, that play can proceed. The one who plays has been freed from the influence of fear, which is why I say that love is bringing out the play in others. Play is how we exercise the freedom that love secures for us.

Furthermore, by saying that “love is bringing out the play in others,” we are asserting that play is pre-existing within the beloved, in the same way that Kierkegaard taught us to assume that love is pre-existing in our neighbor. It is never our job to force play on someone nor to seduce them into a false sense of levity. Rather, we are midwives to their mischief. At times, we are called to be court jesters, gently coaxing the playfulness from their soul through our own unselfconsciousness. Other times, we are called to put our shoulder to their burden, the one which fear has placed on them. The aim of fear is to choke possibility and breed despair, but play provides a backdoor to imagination. 

And it is here, in this wide-open space of imagination that love does it’s best work. It is here that people flourish and find their footing; that alternative realities are dreamt of and new beginnings are grasped; where rules are muted and repair is made possible; where potential is realized and grace is the only law. What a beautiful world we live in.

Long live everything.

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About the Author:

Bradley Andrews is a hopeful rabble-rouser on a mission to inspire the world. Stay in touch with what he’s doing by subscribing to a weekly digest of his activity through micro.blog. This will send you writing, photos, and other curiosities that you are guaranteed to love.