Play Is The Ultimate Goal Of Consciousness

Diane Ackerman perfectly describes the importance of play in this effervescent paragraph:

"Every element of the human saga requires play. We evolved through play. Our culture thrives on play. Courtship includes high theatre, rituals, and ceremonies of play. Ideas are playful reverberations of the mind. Language is a playing with words until they can impersonate physical objects and abstract ideas."

But I must take this line of thinking one step further:

Is play the ultimate goal of consciousness? Are the innumerable universes, the myriads of metaverses, and everything betwixt nothing but realities controlled and, simultaneously, liberated by play? Is play the sine qua non of time, space, and matter? Is play the most sublime and precious thing known in existence? Is 'play' another word for 'truth'?

Answer to all of the above:
Yes!!! (trumpets, bells, whistles sonorously join in on the proclamation)

The human drama has been afflicted by the "we're victims of a tragedy" mentality or the "we're conquerors of the world" mentality. These two mentalities are not diametrically opposed to one another. They are two sides of the same coin. The victimized stance would not exist without those amongst us who choose to rape and pillage with unbridled passion. The pillagers would not exist without a throng of people who are ill-equipped in times of a surprise or premeditated attack. Both are roles played for the purpose of maintaining the roles themselves. Without such overt roles, we could say things are reduced to the sine qua non of existence, and this is play just for the hell of it. Pure play. Play without pretense. Alas, this is the type of play that is forgotten.

The self/other boundary and the nation against other nations boundary:

Our existential view of reality is skewed and distorted because we think the skin is a veritable barrier that separates us from the world. This view ensnares us as a people. In reality, the skin is not a barrier. The skin, an enormous organ of tactile and sensuous feeling, is a permeable membrane where the "in" and "out" play. The permeable membrane is opaque to the dull sense of sight, but to the visionary the permeable membrane is a translucent and organic meeting zone of possibilities. All the possibilities of the lofty air and the corporeal self meet at the nexus point, the skin, to exchange possibilities.

Our distorted view of the skin-as-barrier also distorts our view of the world beyond our immediate horizon. Think of the idea of a "nation-state" regulated by the boundaries it imposes upon itself. Everything beyond the controlled, fenced-in zone of the nation-state, from the myopic viewpoint of the nation-state, is seen as a potentially hostile force. In the words of James P. Carse, author of Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life As Play and Possibility, "A boundary is a phenomenon of opposition. It is the meeting place of hostile forces. Where nothing opposes there can be no boundary." A nation-state without any boundaries is no longer a nation-state at all. It becomes like "translucent and organic skin," a place where political ideas and ideals are exchanged rapturously between the air of goodwill towards men and women and the body of the global informational grid.

Play is the ultimate function of consciousness. It is the ecstasis of the holy, the movement out of silence and stasis. Play is like the golden law of multiplicity: all things play with each other either consciously, semi-consciously, or unconsciously. The ultimate function of modern man and woman involves moving from a state of somnolent anxiety to a state of conscious tranquility. Only a person anchored in the state of permanent, conscious tranquility can possibly recognize play-as-universe and universe-as-play.

Joseph Chilton Pearce said: "Once a person or culture collapses into anxiety, no self-effort is effective against that negative power. Only insight has the power to override the negativity and bring the system into balance." This insight must surely involve sublime play, and this sublime play must cultivate insight.

Lila.
Eros.
Away.