On Play, Jazz, and Creativity

Making Friends with Boredom

When was the last time you played?

This is not a frivolous question. I’m dead serious.

For my own mental health, I have decided I need more play in my life. Yet when I set aside a swath of time to play, I didn’t have a clue what to do. The day stretched on, and I felt like a hooked fish on the floor of the boat, flopping around, unable to move myself out of danger, suffocating in the boredom. Who was I, even?

Well, I’m a reader, for one thing. Libraries have always been fun for me – call me nerdy if you want, but I own it – and so I took myself there.

(Read Alexandra Petri’s slightly satirical opinion piece about Houston’s plan to turn libraries into “discipline centers” here. Protect your libraries. Support your librarians.)

 I spotted a title on the new books shelf that intrigued me: Purple Crayons: The Art of Drawing a Life. Inside, its illustrations were from the book Harold and the Purple Crayon, but it was a grown-up book. So I checked it out.

What a find. The author, Ross Ellenhorn, took me on a philosophical and psychological journey with Harold about play, creativity, connection, and ultimately a hero’s quest. It all starts with Harold making sense of chaos by drawing a moon. “And what Harold does next in relationship to that moon is a lesson for us adults on what we need to do in order for our lives to be meaningful in this place and time. Held in the blanket of moonlight, Harold does what comes naturally to all children when they feel secure: He goes out to play.”

And then comes a whole chapter on playing. Ellerhorn writes, “To play is to first see the pliability of things—to regard objects, ways of thinking, and other beings that can seem unyielding and solid as actually malleable—and second, to make them partly your own, material with which to express your originality. When you play, you are stepping into the unknown, since you can’t know what’s ahead until you create it.”

Message received.

Since my play muscle, if you will, seems to have atrophied, I thought back to when it was stronger. Inspired by Harold, I asked myself what I considered fun when I was a kid. Here’s what came to mind:

• Climbing the willow tree in our yard.

• Designing a snow house’s floor plan by stomping out the shape of the rooms and forming snow furnishings in our wintering garden.

• Arranging and rearranging the pile of cement blocks behind our garage, left over from Dad’s remodeling of our house, into stores, boats, forts, whatever with my brothers.

• Finding, then making frozen footprints after snow and rain and melting and refreezing, and naming these imprints Wonder Worlds, imagining that my friend Cathy and I were giants like Paul Bunyan, who by legend made the northern lakes that way.

• Writing poetry

• Learning about and drawing birds

• Reading—my English teacher Dad’s high school literature anthologies, biographies, fiction

• Designing my someday dream house by perusing the Sears catalog.

• Drawing an abstract image of the view from our kitchen window. The result was kind of Klee-esque and I loved it.

• Swimming and waterskiing

Next, I thought about why those were fun to me. Some were physical challenges, interacting with a tree or water, often with others. Some were about reading and learning—taking in information or someone else’s creative writing. The rest were about creating or designing: houses, rooms, worlds, art, poetry.

Ellerhorn relates play to jazz, too. Jazz starts with a foundation of music theory—keys, rhythms, intervals, modes, melody—and then musicians courageously see where their creativity can take them as they collaborate with each other. So I asked myself what I currently do that is like jazz. Again, some thoughts:

• Arrange my house.

• Create with fabric—a quilt or a garment

• Write—when it’s not just utilitarian. Writing with my eyes closed sometimes opens up the freedom to create – to riff.

• Repurpose things—a vintage tablecloth becomes a window shade, hooks on a curtain rod in my kitchen hold utensils.

• Create within an organization—making it sustainable, rethinking systems to improve it and support new initiatives, influencing strategies, reaching for shared purpose and meaning. (Sometimes even work can feel like jazz.)

• Play a fantasy game

About that last one: One of my children is creating a tabletop role-playing game. I had never played one before, but I asked to participate with a group test-playing it, thinking it would exercise my creativity, which has been in sore need of help. After all, it’s improvisation. And we are playing. Playing a part, imagining, collaborating to solve problems, rising to meet challenges. I go on an adventure every couple of weeks with other people I know and love, and like Harold with his crayon, we create the story as we go along. My son is like Harold’s author in that he has written a story for us to interact with. Returning to the jazz metaphor, he has set up the theory, the rules of play, the basic story/theme/plot/melody. We riff on it, together, with his guidance.

Our culture has evolved to avoid boredom at all costs. Boredom is considered unproductive, which is seemingly one of our worst sins. Screens are ubiquitous from infancy on. We schedule children’s lives solid, and adults pride themselves on a crammed calendar as evidence that they have value. Multitasking is a way of life.

Most of the play I described from my childhood came out of free-range time. The only screen available was our one TV with three channels.  I got bored a lot, but whenever I complained to my mom, she’d suggest chores. My brothers and I and our friends learned to exercise our imaginations, play games, make things, or catch bugs and watch them. I was a huge daydreamer.

Ashok Seshadri, MD, in an article called “Boost Your Brain with Boredom” for the Mayo Clinic Health System, says that when we are experiencing boredom, “Many important things are happening in the brain. It's consolidating memories and reflecting on lessons learned. The brain plays through scenarios and applies what was learned and how it could be used in the future. People spend time thinking about themselves and others. They reminisce about the past and daydream about the future. The resting state also can be a creative time, and it can lead to finding creative solutions to problems that are bothering people.”

And the more we avoid boredom—with screens, for instance—the less our brains can cope with the lack of mental stimulation, says Seshadri.

That day when I just about panicked from boredom, I was trying to avoid the draw of screen amusement from social media and YouTube videos. Amusement gives us a hit of stimulation, but it doesn’t last and it’s not play. Ellerhorn defines play as interacting with objects, ideas, or other people to express something of our own individuality. We participate in our own reality, either the actual world or one of our own making.

On the other hand, the etymology of amuse tells us that, from the Latin, amuse = a+muse, meaning the absence of thought. Yes, sometimes it’s valid to use amusement to rest. But too much amusement makes life a spectator sport. Play makes us participants.

The path to more play, and therefore more creativity and wellbeing, may need to start with boredom. “Don't be afraid of boredom,” says Dr. Seshadri. “It's a normal part of life. Try not to dismiss or dislike it. Instead, try to view it as an opportunity to restore your brain and develop creative solutions to problems.”

I mean to try.

The world needs our originality. You need mine. I need yours.

Let’s go out to play.