Over the past several weeks, as much of the world has been requested or required to stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have seen, read, and listened to more than a few things relating to “[insert field of knowledge] in a time of crisis.”
To cite a few, I particularly appreciated Sam Harris’ podcast episode about the importance of meditation in an emergency, I attended a short course about dealing with uncertainty offered by Landmark Worldwide (A Place to Stand, freely available if ever you’ve done the Landmark Forum, also based on this text from Werner Erhard), I read several reports from various advertising, design, branding, strategy and marketing agencies about communicating in these uncertain times, and of course this video showing every COVID-19 advert to be the same.
This made me think of why the notion of play remains essential in dealing with a crisis. I did some research online and came across this great toolkit shared by the International Play Association (IPA):
The IPA is an NGO founded in 1961. Their purpose is to protect, preserve, and promote the child’s right to play as a fundamental human right.
~Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
“That every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.
That member governments shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.”
If you’re a parent, caregiver, or somehow work with children I recommend checking it out.
I stole some ideas from there and look at them from a wider perspective, given I believe play is fundamental and essential for all human beings (and children should have play protected as a right).
I’ll break it down in three parts.
1. Agency
Agency is a philosophical and sociological idea, defined as the capacity of people to make free choices, to act upon their own will.
It is a much discussed notion, and while many thinkers have theorised why it might only be an illusion, at least it seems instinctively important to have some sense of control over our choices and actions.
Many have had a lot of agency removed in this crisis situation (or self-imposed, depending where you are – and I realize I’m mostly writing about rich and privileged positions here). We tend to cope in different ways, one of them being light relief.
Seeing the amount of silly and funny memes circulating lately, it’s a seemingly natural way for everyone to counterbalance the amount of serious or negative emotions going on in these disrupted and uncertain times.
I caught up with one of my aunts in the first week during the lockdown and she told me she was only propagating funny stuff (as opposed to anxiety inducing stuff – anxiogène, in French).
I received, laughed, and shared a few of those memes too. I participated as a spectator or consumer, which can be a form of player agency, though I believe it’s limited.
I enjoyed the silly videos so much I jumped in and recorded a few. I let myself be carried by the feeling of wanting to be part of it and play with silly fun. They’re bad quality and embarrassing, though I am happy to have spent the time doing them, and to make a 100+ friends smile or laugh (or possibly have a few be ever so slightly concerned for my well-being).
Thinking about it after the fact, the notion of participation is key, and being freely chosen is a defining characteristic of play. Player agency is a recurring theme in game design and theory, exploring levels of freedom and choice a player is given in a game. In a tabletop roleplaying game for example, the central idea as the name indicates, is one plays a role. Often this means creating and interpreting a make-believe character. If one player imposes or otherwise limits the freedom of another, they remove agency, and the benefits of play along with it.
I’m not a nurse, policy maker, or even performing an essential job – I’m just a dude at home. With my videos I shifted from being a consumer to being an active participant and contributor. I made a (small) role to play in the crisis, at the level of my friends, family, and communities. In a way, I wrested some agency over a situation where I had little to none.
Others may have had a similar experiences with baking bread for the first time, mimicking a famous piece of art in a photo, or picking up a dusty musical instrument. If you haven’t done anything like it, I encourage you to – even if you don’t particularly have any more time than you had before.
2. Resourcefulness and agility
I’ve been blown away by people’s resourcefulness since the lockdown began. I’ll illustrate with my tabletop roleplaying games communities.
A hotly debated topic in those circles is whether playing in person or playing remotely is better – removing any notion of “better” makes it an interesting conversation in my book, otherwise not so much. It’s just different. Regardless, the option of playing in person was suddenly no longer available.
With the help of the friends I play with, we moved all the materials from the surreal fantasy Invisible Sun roleplaying game from my living room table to a virtual one, shifting to a collaborative whiteboard space on Miro.com, a Mindnode mind map, and a dedicated Discord server (I tend to prefer Miro to Roll20, though I admit I haven’t used the latter as much).
We already had some of those elements, but moved everything else we needed to play remotely. I realised it’s even better to have all these references easily available at a glance in the same virtual space. We don’t struggle with everyone’s busy schedules as much without worrying about to and from travel times. I miss physically being with my friends to play, it’s an important part for me, but on the other hand I am ironically playing more now than I was before the lockdown.
Just like all other gatherings, gaming conventions and conferences have been cancelled for the foreseeable future.
Almost immediately, someone launched the idea of organising a virtual tabletop roleplaying gaming convention. It quickly snowballed into a large of group of organisers, and within an impressively short 3 weeks, the first ever international French speaking tabletop roleplaying games CyberConv was born.
Over 1,700 people from France, Quebec, Belgium, Switzerland and wherever else, joined over the course a long weekend of non stop video streaming and online gaming extravaganza via Twitch.tv, Youtube, and Discord (a popular app for gamers). There were round table discussions, interviews with designers, publisher events, game design jams, art and colouring competitions, giveaways, fundraising, and of course many games played. I facilitated a game of Fiasco, played a storytelling game, attended a bunch of other talks and events. The heartwarming energy and enthusiasm was incredibly palpable. I left the event inspired.
It is quite normal to feel discombobulated, paralysed, or fearful at times during a crisis, and I don’t mean to minimise this. At the same time, the carving of separate time and space for play turns out to be a source a of new creative energy, which can be put to good use in having new ideas and envisioning new ways of operating. I believe it favorises being able to better adapt, by being fleet-footed and agile, to cite a popular business buzzword.
3. Uncertainty
I was fascinated to note that uncertain outcomes are defining characteristics of both play and crisis.
We generally do our best to mitigate or eliminate uncertainty from our lives (or at least the feeling of uncertainty, the other side of trying to have control). Of course, we don’t want bad things happening, so we think about them, maybe worry sometimes, probably ward them off as best we can.
It’s an inherent aspect of my job as a strategist. The whole idea as I see it, is to try and think of all the possibilities and milestones towards achieving goals in an otherwise actually unknowable future. We might not know what will happen but at least we have a strategy. By default that has only established some control, and we can’t account for every possibility. Hence the importance of first wresting some agency back, then being agile and resourceful with it in the face of uncertainty.
When playing, we embrace and enjoy the uncertainty of the outcome. I’m not really a chess player and I’m not particularly competitive, but the little I played, I remember being tensely invigorated thinking of all the possible moves to be made by myself and my opponent. Not knowing what will happen next in a storytelling game is a large part of the pleasure for me. I enjoy working with clients on their brand and marketing strategies in the same way.
Meanwhile, there is typically little enjoyable play experience left in the second half of a game of Monopoly, where I’m just waiting for the torment to end while I’m handing what little money I have left to whoever is in the lead (the dice gods don’t seem to favour me all that much; a topic for another time).
It is another reason I believe in juxtaposing play with strategy. I see it as practice for being with uncertainty. That’s not necessarily to try and eliminate it all, rather to appreciate uncertainty is actually always there. We wouldn’t appreciate everything new and unexpected if it wasn’t, even though it may well mean accepting both tragedy and wonder as part of the mix.
As French novelist André Gide once wrote:
“One does not discover new land without first consenting to lose sight of the shore for a long time.”
~ André Gide
Thanks for reading. Take care, be safe, and play.
