Does the end justify the means? Or the other way round, if that makes sense at all. Let’s assume there is no end, what would you feel about the means? Does it make sense, just the means? Johan Huizinga has this to say about play in the book ‘Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture’,

It is an activity that proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action, mirth and relaxation follow.

Feeling Nostalgic. So far so good. Not feeling nostalgic, then feel free to give up and read something else. Next time you feel nostalgic, pause if you can. That nostalgic memory, what were you doing and was there a purpose to it? More likely, you were just wasting time, but a waste that created a memory to be *played* back, all the pun intended.

There was a time when humans felt only emotions and likely enjoyed them. Like animals. Then we started analysing them, and gained the so-called consciousness or self-awareness. But there is a price to pay. Once we understand a particular activity, it more or less loses its play element. The activity got tagged with purpose, an end, a target and gradually became a necessity. Mobile phones? Not to be disheartened. We lost a play element, but we gained in culture. Again mobile phones?

Some activities survived the onslaught of intellect. Atleast for kids still developing their intellect. Adults are intelligent but thanks to our lack of understanding of how to breed intelligence, we are still at mercy of play of nature or specifically genes. What else can we call evolution, but play. Do not despair though, for there are still humans around and enough of them to keep alive some pure play activities and even discover new activities. Parkour?

Toys, games, books, music, art, theatre still survive as pure play but for how long? Look around, those have started serving a purpose, a need. Educational toys, self-help books, meditative music? When was the last time you just listened to music for hours (sitting at home, alone without headphones and maybe with some intoxicating agent at hand) and more importantly enjoyed it? We still do sometimes enjoy raw emotions but more and more, it is getting substituted by nostalgia. We boost about our intelligence and fear the culture we incidentally developed in analysing play. We seem to be perpetually stuck between our emotions and evolving intellect.

Not to worry, give evolution some time, we shall get over all our emotions. After all, what is the use of emotions if we cannot enjoy them? Till then, let's play and relive nostalgia. Ever wondered why we cannot enjoy melancholy?