What's the Point of Playing?

When the pandemic was in full force, my kids were at the perfect age to love the playground. Other parents stood at a distance, armed with Lysol wipes and full COVID gear, watching and waiting for their turn. I, on the other hand, hovered protectively over my kids like a human bubble. The unspoken rule was clear: the sight of another parent approaching the playground was our cue to leave. Looking back, my kids barely got to enjoy the playground during those years.

But then again, what’s the point of enjoying the playground if it risks making you sick? That was the logic behind the overprotective approach many of us took. The problem, though, wasn’t just about avoiding illness—it was that by being overprotective, we unintentionally robbed kids of the playground’s purpose. Playgrounds aren’t just for fun. They’re arenas for bruises, lessons, and growth.

Fortunately, kids are resilient. They’ll find ways to play and get into mischief no matter how many guardrails we put up. As hard as it was for me to watch my kids fall, scrape their knees, or leave with bruises, I now see the benefit of letting them explore. Those timid, pandemic-era kids have since transformed into confident little ninjas, swinging across monkey bars and hanging upside down like pros.

It’s not just humans, play is universal. Tiger cubs wrestle, baring sharp teeth as they tumble together. Monkeys mock-fight in the safety of their troops. Young bucks butt heads in playful duels. Play is nature’s way of teaching life skills in a controlled, relatively safe environment.

Once I let go and allowed my kids to fully embrace the playground, they fell, cried, and sometimes wanted to give up. But they also learned. They discovered balance, built strength, and gained courage. There’s no shortcut to those lessons. You can’t learn how to climb monkey bars by sitting through a lecture. You have to try, fail, and try again.

This idea applies just as much to adults as it does to kids. As a grown-up, I may not be flipping on monkey bars anymore, but I still play. My version of play involves building things, sometimes entirely useless things.

Last year, for example, I built a tool to search a filesystem using SQL.

$> sqlfs "SELECT name, owner, filesize FROM ~/ WHERE extension = 'jpg'"

I built it in both PHP and Golang. Will it ever be used in a production environment? Probably not. But it was a lot of fun to create, and I learned so much about SQL and parsing along the way. I’ve read countless articles about building language parsers, but actually building one taught me lessons I couldn’t have picked up otherwise.

When I interview people for a job, I always ask them what they enjoy doing outside of work. In other words, how do they play? The answers are often surprising and seemingly unrelated to the job, but they always reveal something fundamental about the person. Play is an integral part of who we are. It allows us to experiment, fail, and grow in ways that formal education or structured work environments never could.

Whether it’s kids on a playground or adults tinkering with a hobby, play teaches us essential lessons in a safe environment. It equips us to face challenges, solve problems, and ultimately thrive in the real world. So go ahead. Fall off the monkey bars, build something useless, or wrestle with an idea. That’s how we learn. That’s how we grow.

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