On Play
Travel can be incredibly nourishing, even as it tires us and leaves blisters on our toes. As I crawled up the statues in Vigeland Sculpture Park, I couldn't help but think, when did we stop playing?
Business travel--what I used to do much more of--is not about roaming, but about order. The conveyor belts and security lanes feel not like a new special stage of Super Mario Brothers but the kind of uniform people processing that quickly make even the not terribly introspective feel like a cog in a machine who's on/off switch we've yet to find.
But, leisure travel--and I mean real leisure, not Thanksgiving at home with the whole family and that fattening food you would never cook for yourself--is about roaming. It's about exploration and quenching one's thirst for discovery. Simply put--it's about play. Sometime in middle school, recess was crimped to some stifling 'break' time where we sat around and hoped to trade apples for ho-hos. In lieu of carving out our nooks and crannies of the playground, we were left with a locker bay and a cafeteria to roam. Meager prospects compared to the great outdoors.
My time in Oslo has been, as I think you'll soon gather, about reaffirming faith in play. That when they took recess away, they didn't take away innately human desire to explore, to question, to witness. I came to remind myself that such values are enduring and a belief in that principle is incredibly nourishing. I don't do this often--or, I haven't placated my whimsical desires in a while, and seeing the prescribed 'adult' life of work and sleep, I realize that just as we looked forward to kickball, we still need opportunities and adventures to look forward to, to live for. The answer, to that stinging question most Boomer-parents ask their college graduates, "what will you do with your life?", is "live".
Business travel--what I used to do much more of--is not about roaming, but about order. The conveyor belts and security lanes feel not like a new special stage of Super Mario Brothers but the kind of uniform people processing that quickly make even the not terribly introspective feel like a cog in a machine who's on/off switch we've yet to find.
But, leisure travel--and I mean real leisure, not Thanksgiving at home with the whole family and that fattening food you would never cook for yourself--is about roaming. It's about exploration and quenching one's thirst for discovery. Simply put--it's about play. Sometime in middle school, recess was crimped to some stifling 'break' time where we sat around and hoped to trade apples for ho-hos. In lieu of carving out our nooks and crannies of the playground, we were left with a locker bay and a cafeteria to roam. Meager prospects compared to the great outdoors.
My time in Oslo has been, as I think you'll soon gather, about reaffirming faith in play. That when they took recess away, they didn't take away innately human desire to explore, to question, to witness. I came to remind myself that such values are enduring and a belief in that principle is incredibly nourishing. I don't do this often--or, I haven't placated my whimsical desires in a while, and seeing the prescribed 'adult' life of work and sleep, I realize that just as we looked forward to kickball, we still need opportunities and adventures to look forward to, to live for. The answer, to that stinging question most Boomer-parents ask their college graduates, "what will you do with your life?", is "live".
posted by Josh Labove at
3:15 PM
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