Work::Play

If you missed it, My friend Loba attached a link about play in the comments section on the 'Play' post. I have not listened to the NPR show on play yet, but I did check out the Play website. pretty neat.

I was thinking about play last night when my husband completed the rubik's cube. He has been working with it for a couple of weeks now and has solved it twice in the past week. The way he engages in learning about the cube does not seem play like to me. He researches. He looks up tips online. He studies his moves and the relationships between the colored squares. He does not laugh and joke around when he is working on it. It is serious. He's not playing around.

It seems like lines between play and work have been blurred.

He told me that when he is at work, he uses the song, 'Livin' La Vida Loca' to teach his interns about digital sound mixing. This sounds like play to me. I picture the two chuckling at the silly song and how horribly it was mixed.

Dave's work::play lines are blurred. He uses whichever gives him the resources he needs to meet the goal. Teaching an intern? Play is appropriate. Learning a complex skill? Work.

My lines seem neatly drawn to me. I even sort of lay out a schedule for myself. Morning, work. Naptime, play. But of course there are times during work that things between Andrew and I get silly. And times during scrapbooking that I want to look something up and hunker down and get serious. And I guess it is the same with Andrew. Sometimes his play takes such intense concentration that a circus wouldn't interrupt him.

When Dave passed me the cube last night, I admired it's order and perfection. I was so happy for him. But he wasn't entirely pleased. He was frustrated.

"It's like I shot a basketball at the hoop 1000 times before it went in."
"But, Dave, I don't know anyone else that has ever made the ball get through the hoop."

I think that tonight he will mess it up again and try to improve his performance and efficiency.
You know, just like he does at work.