How filling life with play-whether soccer or lawn mowing, counting
sheep or tossing Angry Birds -- forges a new path for creativity and joy
in our impatient age
Life is boring: filled with meetings and traffic, errands and emails.
Nothing we'd ever call fun. But what if we've gotten fun wrong? In
Play Anything, visionary game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost
shows how we can overcome our daily anxiety; transforming the boring,
ordinary world around us into one of endless, playful possibilities.
The key to this playful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of
fun and games. Play Anything, reveals that games appeal to us not
because they are fun, but because they set limitations. Soccer
wouldn't be soccer if it wasn't composed of two teams of eleven players
using only their feet, heads, and torsos to get a ball into a goal;
Tetris wouldn't be Tetris without falling pieces in characteristic
shapes. Such rules seem needless, arbitrary, and difficult. Yet it is
the limitations that make games enjoyable, just like it's the hard
things in life that give it meaning.
Play is what happens when we accept these limitations, narrow our
focus, and, consequently, have fun. Which is also how to live a good
life. Manipulating a soccer ball into a goal is no different than
treating ordinary circumstances- like grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and
making PowerPoints-as sources for meaning and joy. We can play anything
by filling our days with attention and discipline, devotion and love for
the world as it really is, beyond our desires and fears.
Ranging from Internet culture to moral philosophy, ancient poetry to
modern consumerism, Bogost shows us how today's chaotic world can only
be tamed-and enjoyed-when we first impose boundaries on ourselves.
