Is play meaningful? A comment on the purposeful life.

I blame St Paul:

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Those childish things are mostly about play, about the enjoyable but idle wasting of time with mere fun. And, in the stern puritan world of today, such things are not meaningful, play is not meaningful. Adults should be doing purposeful things that 'contribute' not frivolous fripperies, not leisure and pleasure.

Here's US "medical ethicist" (I've no idea either) and architect of 'Obamacare', Ezekiel Emmanuel:

These people who live a vigorous life to 70, 80, 90 years of age—when I look at what those people “do,” almost all of it is what I classify as play. It’s not meaningful work. They’re riding motorcycles; they’re hiking. Which can all have value—don’t get me wrong. But if it’s the main thing in your life? Ummm, that’s not probably a meaningful life.

This contains all the essential elements of the puritan - we live to work, to do purposeful and meaningful things. This is what matters not riding a motorbike or hiking the Sierras. Play is not what grown ups should do, we put away those childish things and did serious, sensible grown up projects, the things that constitute a meaningful life.

I retired this year because I'd had enough of what I was doing and am fortunate to be in a financial situation allowing me to do so. On Emmanuel's assessment, I'm no longer living a meaningful life. I've picked up those childish things again - going for walks, travelling to new places, playing Dungeons & Dragons, enjoying the place I live and time with friends and neighbours. There's a point when you realise that nothing much you do actually matters and it is strangely liberating.

Emmanuel's observation is his view as to what constitutes a meaningful life (or rather, since he doesn't say what his meaningful life contains, what doesn't constitute a meaningful life and the interviewer makes no attempt to extract an answer that might help). But I don't see playing games, enjoying the beauty of the world, spending time with family and friends as thing without meaning. In fact, compared to most folk's routine job, these are far more important and contain more meaning.

All this reflects the obsession with productivity as the sole measure of purpose. We're told that we're not productive enough and that this won't do at all, yet we're happier spending leisure time than we are with the drudge of our work. So, yes (and not for the first time) St Paul is wrong, or at least misunderstood. There is as much purpose in consumption, in the pleasures of life as there is in those dry tasks that puritans like Emmanuel consider meaningful.

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