The importance of play | John Cohn | TEDxDelft
206,668
Published 2013-12-19
John says he is at his most creative, influential, productive and happy when he is playful at his work. With playful he means being in a state of childlike innocence. So playfulness is not just about enjoying your work, you are even more creative, as studies show. You can also reclaim that childlike state, by imagining you are still seven years old.
Life however, has a way of taking play away from us. The harder life gets, the more we have to work at staying playful. If work is not playful anymore, than it is just work. Which is why they call it work, incidentally. Six years ago, life became very difficult for John, when his son Sam died in a car crash. Sam was an organ donor, and when his life ended he saved the life of four other people. Needless to say, John's life changed forever. And trying to get his life back on track involved a playful element, although he didn't think of it like that at the time. John and his family started making SamStones, small stones with Sam's name on it. Now, over six years later, some 40,000 SamStones have travelled all over the world, and each stone tells a story. One of them even went to space and back.
Life will give you reasons not to play, and you have to fight back!
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All Comments (21)
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"the harder it gets the harder you have to play" what a lovely talk. I find a lot of Truth in everything he said. Thank you.
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As soon as he walked on stage, I knew I was going to love this guy.
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Play is so important in the classroom. The students learn differently then just out of a textbook. I don't feel that bad now on how we teach the students in our Autism/Support class!
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we don't need to only take work seriously but to take play seriously. but i think educators are always open to ideas of integrating play and school work
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Thank you! "Life will give you reasons not to play, and you have to fight back!" SO TRUE!!!
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He's a very positive person despite what he and his family have been through.
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Great talk. This doctor reminds me of Doc Brown in Back to the Future.
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What an awesome guy! His sense of fun, warmth and enthusiasm is so infectious 😊
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wow i was just looking up sensory play bins for my son and stumbled upon this, this was awesome to listen to. really had me thinking
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Why Adults Should Play Playing is a very important means for development. When we play, we develop new relationships and connections. While it is common knowledge that children need to play in order to develop, which is why we buy them games and put a lot of effort into working out the most suitable games for each stage of their development, it is not so clear with us adults. We do not really like to play. Our relations end up quickly deteriorating into each one of us degrading the other, which ends our playing. As a result, we miss out on a lot of what we can get out of life. We fail to examine all of our options for development as adults, and we thus put a halt to our further development. We have turned our daily lives into a prison of sorts. That is, we need to look, behave and talk in certain kinds of ways—and only in those certain kinds of ways—otherwise, we will not fit in with others and gain their respect. Without their respect, we get treated in ways that harm us. We suffer from living in such a prison, but it has become so ingrained into our lives that we cannot escape from it. The essence of our playing as adults should be that we treat each other positively even if we do not feel like it, and to teach others to do the same. Playing in such a way would emulate the higher state of positive connection that nature is developing us toward, and we would thus draw positive forces of connection that dwell in nature into our relations, and start feeling happier, more confident, and that our lives are purpose-driven.
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Thank you for reminding us to keep our playful spirit, John!
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You are awesome. I'm speechless. You are one of the best speakers, and i've seen a lot! Listening to you just feels natural. You have this cozy daddy wipe :D Love it
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Loved the professor on the colony
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This man is my hero.
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It’s always a great day to play!!!! Loved this so much!
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A-M-A-Z-I-N-G !!!!!
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Blissed Out. Play is living. Thank you!
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This is a VERY underrated talk
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Great talk, John! I know for a fact that the lack of play on my life is why I'm not as happy as I'd like to be! Thanks for the inspiring words. P.S., I never knew that was YOU on that show! My kid walked in while I was watching this video and said "OMG!! That's the super, crazy smart guy on that show!" Hahahaha, awesome.
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Awesome, how to gain creativity by allowing yourself to play!
