Radical Multiplicity

In defense of esoteric methodologies

In an era increasingly saturated by technological, measured, and analyzed modes of existing, what frames our underlying sense or ability to navigate newfound complexities in the ways we work and play? In order not to ditch potentially useful elements of this technological revolution, how do we understand our place in it all?

It’s all relative, might be an important ideal marker for what we value in any given process of work or play. Play might be interpreted completely differently depending on its context. Also, play might be said to be the very method by which we resolve the discord between misaligned values (in the abstract). Play helps us understand hierarchies, abilities, and relationships. Play is personal. While work and play can overlap considerably, occasionally they are divorced from one another entirely in settings aimed at production/products over processes, or entertainment (or its ideal) itself. The long game vs the short game comes to mind. A goal then of this essay is the very process of merging what we see as ‘work’ with what we preconceive play to be as adults, let’s say. How can one possibly be playful with a theory?

While our narrative capacities as humans certainly carry us far into perceiving our outside world, finding meaning in immersion, and the actors within worlds, this storytelling sometimes falls short of describing the ways we actually make decisions, and come to understand our surroundings. Simultaneously we bounce between fiction and reality as perceived to affect our identity. The boundaries are blurred. Is reality a story we’re telling ourselves? A hallucination? Perhaps a sort of collective imagination about how things are, or could be, or something more banal. Theories abound, but here we are, still left wondering if we’ll be judged for playing as we work. For following our intuition. In the field of architecture in which I work, writing is sometimes seen as such an ancillary or superfluous activity. I couldn’t disagree more.

I acknowledge much of our sense of play and work is cultural or personal in origin. We’re told as young people to hunker down for what will most certainly be an unhappy adulthood working away at producing widgets in a system we are unable to understand or control. But most of us are way past this point in our own interoceptional capabilities. We make play out of necessity to make sense — and it has rules as any human behavior might; rules regarding how one acts and with who, and to what end.

It is playfulness then that frames the work, in fact. And this play has fewer limits than we might at first perceive. This leads us to realities of our human condition expressed through loving affection, or potentially destructive behavior, gathering only that which is learned through a difficult process of error and correction of error which many avoid altogether. But an enhanced sensibility arises among some, namely the sense of what constitutes the ‘long game’ — a game where the goal is continuation of the game itself, not victory.

If we see play as foundational to how we understand what work is, I believe it is the most esoteric or unique and fragile ideas that guide us on our sense of play and creation. An intuition for others. The freedom we feel at this phenomenon is evident in many human behaviors. Those attending a large festive event might feel liberated to experience something new, meet new people, or participate in a larger setting without knowing the concurrent effects of their change in behavior. Play in this sense is measured by entirely different rules. Those among us working in environments where there are few humanistic considerations (e.g., not designed) will have a very different perception of their place and value. The esoteric view on creation then might lean us towards a sort of wandering purposelessness in which we feel there are no bearings. Meaning is inserted between the notes of daily life where it can be. But all we need to do is look to the world closely for inspiration in how unique moments serve us in deeply creative ways.

Returning to the root origin of meaning in work and play means returning to the memories of what has inspired us to continue through hardship, or has inspired us to achieve greatness in what we do. Our own psychologies might be tricked into believing we are mere instruments if we do not consider the implications of such realizations.

-r